


pierce me

by nutmegalomania



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Blow Jobs, College Student Eren Yeager, Cute Eren Yeager, Drama, Eren Yeager eating you out MMMMMM, Eren Yeager hitting it from behind, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Frat Boy Eren Yeager, Slow Burn, Smut, Tongue Piercings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:13:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 64,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28310682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmegalomania/pseuds/nutmegalomania
Summary: As an honor student on a scholarship ride, you hadn’t planned to do it with the popular college frat boy, Eren Jaeger, but a sudden twist in fate led you two to spend a steamy and lust-filled night together. Now, he seems to have set his sights on you and doesn’t plan to let you go. His persistence towards you brings back memories you’d pushed to the back of your mind, and you have a hard time accepting his true feelings. Will he be able to win you over, or will you slip from his grasp before he has time to prove himself to you?
Relationships: Eren Yeager/Reader
Comments: 154
Kudos: 1066





	1. slow down

**Author's Note:**

> You're buried in the pillow, yeah you're so loud  
> But I'm about to show you, baby, slow down

Your eyes burned like someone had dunked your head into the ocean and yanked your eyelids back to let the salt seep in, and you knew you couldn’t stare at the computer screen in front of you for another second. Mr. Witch—as you and many others called him for his hooked nose that reminded you of the wicked witch of the west—had assigned a sudden history project for everyone to complete by themselves, and you had wanted to get it done as soon as possible. Even if you didn’t care for his class that much, it was critical that you did your best to gain all your credits and not disappoint those who put their faith in you to graduate. 

The emptied cans of coffee littered around your desk, some crushed from your irritation at the project, reminded you of the hours you had poured into the half finished project that taunted you from the safe confines of your bright computer screen. If the computer didn’t cost half of a month’s rent, you would have punched a hole in it by now. Instead of forcing yourself to work on the project any longer, you moved your mouse up to the save button, spammed it fifty times, shut your computer off, and jumped into your bed. 

All the coffee in your system thrummed in your veins, and though your eyes burned, sleep wouldn’t greet you with its comforting embrace when you laid on your bed and closed your eyes. As you laid on your back, your wide open but dry eyes stared at the ceiling of your dorm room, and you could make out the small bumps that formed clumps. The ceiling changed from purple to pink to green then settled on blue before it repeated the cycle, and you dragged your eyes over from the ceiling to check the frat house on campus. Dozens of people danced around, some making out with each other, others grinding on each other, as the bright lights flashed around them. Definitely not seizure friendly.

You heard a soft buzz and could make out the slight melody of Good Form by Nicki Minaj that you assumed the DJ decided to play at the party. To ignore the flashing lights that strained your eyes, you rolled over on your bed to come face to face with your roommate and best friend, Jayden,’s empty bed. You vaguely remembered them telling you that they’d be heading over to the party to let loose and find a cute boy or girl to hook up with. They left after reassuring you that they wouldn’t bring their boy/girl toy back to your dorm room and would have fun with their toy at the frat house. They had offered to bring you with them, even going as far as laying an outfit out for you on their bed before they left, but you had declined and told them you’d be spending your night working on your project—which you wished you had never said. 

After they had told you not to work yourself to death, they had left you to your own devices, but now you wished you had gone with them. Just thinking about the project made you want to grab your computer, stomp up to Mr. Witch’s apartment, knock on his door, and slam it over the top of his head when he answered. Too bad you couldn’t actually do that, but hey, you could dream. 

Even from your rolled over position, you could still see the flashing lights on your ceiling out of the corner of your eyes, and an exasperated sigh left you as you flailed around in your bed. You just wanted to sleep, but fate wouldn’t let you. The coffee coupled with the flashing lights and slight hum of too-loud music kept you awake, and no amount of tiredness would let sleep take you.

You deliberated for a few minutes as to whether you should play nature sounds and drink a cup of chamomile tea or just let out all your frustrations at a party with shitty booze and sweaty people. Sleep sounded the best, but a small part of your mind poked at you and told you to take the chance to let loose for once.

 _Loosen up, honor student. One night isn’t gonna kill you._ it seemed to tell you, and you wanted to strangle that part of your mind to shut it up. You grabbed your pillow and shoved it against your face, letting out a loud groan into it. Once you felt like you had released enough anger, you let the pillow fall from your face as you jumped out of your bed and stomped over to your roommate’s bed, the outfit they picked out for you staring back at you and begging you to put it on. 

You said fuck it and stripped from your pajamas and slipped the outfit on, cringing as it stuck to your body. Curse Jayden and their decision to give you a tight red dress. If you were back in high school, you’d get dress coded right away for the amount of shoulder exposure. You peered over your shoulders and wondered if you had any acne on your back and if your back fat and arm fat spilled out.

The cross halter neck of the dress made it so that a large part of the middle of your chest was exposed to any eyes that dared to look, and it made the rational part of your mind yell at you to change your clothes to save others from having to look at your body, but the other part, the part that told you to let loose, told you to go all out and not give a shit about other people’s opinions. The coffee in your system fucked up your ability to think straight, and when coupled with your lack of sleep, you couldn’t care less what happened, something you wish you thought more often. As you headed towards the entrance, you grabbed your phone, keys, and slipped on strategically placed stilettos that you knew Jayden had left for you. It seemed they knew you’d change your mind eventually. You fixed up your messy hair before you walked to the door.

With a final check to make sure you had everything you needed, you pulled your purse over your shoulder, opened the door to stick your head out, and checked to see if the dorm supervisor was nearby. When an empty, silent hallway greeted you, you took a deep breath, closed the door, and dashed towards the exit so you could head towards the party. The front door to the dormitory creaked as you opened it, and you cringed as you waited for the dorm supervisor to run over to you and tackle you. Luckily, she didn’t, and you were safe to exit. 

A cool breeze hit your exposed skin, causing you to shudder and curse yourself for not bringing a cardigan. You blamed your caffeine-high brain for neglecting that important article of clothing that would save at least your shoulders from freezing. As the buzz of loud music vibrated through the ground and shook your body the closer you walked to the disco ball for a frat house, you ignored the cold—or more like you got used to it.

You stood in the walkway for the house, and you took a deep sigh to ready yourself to enter your first party since that one you went to in high school that ended in the cops showing up and ending everything early. The moment you decided to step forward towards the door, it burst open, and two girls stepped out, both clearly drunk out of their minds, a blonde supporting a brunette around the waist while the brunette slung her arm over the other girl’s shoulder.

“Careful, babe~ You’ll hurt yourself,” the blonde said to the brunette.

“Speak for yourself. I’m more sober than you~” the brunette responded. They stumbled down the stairs together, just barely managing to stabilize themselves as they headed towards you and the dormitory. They drew closer, and the brunette peered at you through half-closed eyes. “Damn, you look hot, girl~ Go get it!”

“I’m right here, Trixie!” the blonde slurred, and you gave an awkward smile in apology as her girlfriend babbled on about how your legs looked good in the stilettos, though they were probably cold. After she offered to warm them up for you, the blonde dragged her away, though she still stumbled and lost her grip several times in her drunken stupor. 

The drunk brunette’s words reminded you once again how exposed you were to prying eyes, and you rubbed your hands up and down your bare arms to warm them up and remove the goosebumps forming on your skin. The rational part of your brain told you to turn right back around and head to bed instead of standing here in the cold, but the other part of your brain that you wished would shut up told you to keep going. While you debated what to do, the door opened once more, and a man stumbled out, a red solo cup in hand and a traffic cone orange snapback pulling his blond hair out of his face. He let out a loud laugh as someone yelled something at him, but his laughter stopped when he spotted you, eyes widening.

“Whacha doing out here, beautiful? Come to party?” he asked you, and you blinked as words failed to form on the tip of your tongue.

Your eyes trailed down to his t-shirt with the symbols ΡΩΔ written across his chest and gulped. Of course you had to run into one of the frat boys hosting the party. You stuttered out a barely intelligible reply to him, and he smiled at you.

“Great! You can just head in. The night is still young, as you can see.” When you just stood there, fiddling with your feet, he chuckled. “I don’t bite, and neither do the other people in here—well, most of them. Jason has a biting kink, so stay away from him if you’re not into that, and I guess Chelsea has one too, but she isn’t here. Sleeping instead to get ready for her nursing home trip this weekend.” 

You stayed silent.

“Do you want me to help you? You look ready to run off, and that’s the last thing I’d want, especially in those heels. They look good on you, but they’re not optimal for running.” He stepped down the stairs, placing his drink on the railing as he walked to you. A hand reached out to you, and you hesitated to take it. Before you could make a decision, the front door creaked open.

You spotted a loose strand of black hair peeking out from the door as a muscular arm came into view before the owner stepped into your full view. The man must have been around 184 centimeters with wide shoulders exposed by his loose tank top that showed off his muscular arms and obliques. You gulped as his muscles contracted from the cold and moved your eyes up to look at his face. Strands of hair framed his handsome face, the rest pulled back into a messy man bun. His green eyes focused on the man next to you, ignoring your presence as you were shielded from his view, and he leaned against the open door, his biceps flexing, much to your pleasure.

“Yo, Chase, what the hell are you doing out here, man? You’ve been gone for a long ass time, and now your bitches are asking me where you went. Hurry up before they jump me instead,” his deep voice came from the entrance, and you gulped. You hadn’t expected such a soothing yet husky voice to leave his mouth, but you knew you would never get tired of hearing him talk. 

The man in front of you rolled his eyes and turned around to look at the newcomer. He held up a finger. “First off, don’t call them that, and second off, you’d like that; don’t lie. They just want to ask me to go get mani-pedis with them tomorrow. Amuse them for me while I help this girl out!” Chase yelled back.

The man at the door leaned his head to the side to see around Chase, and his eyes turned to slits when he spotted you. The breath in your lungs left you as his green eyes fixed their stare on your shivering body, and you wished you had chosen a less revealing outfit to hide yourself. You felt like a trembling rabbit in the eyes of a tiger ready to eat you in one gulp, and you dropped your eyes to his chest instead. His lips curled into a smirk, and he shoved his hands into his pockets after closing the door behind him. He stepped towards you and Chase, his ripped jeans-clad legs begging for your attention as his leg muscles flexed with each step, and you felt the urge to run away.

“Are you sure you were just helping her, Chasey-poo? Not trying to run off with her instead of your other girls? They’d be heartbroken if they knew,” he drawled, and Chase’s jaw twitched.

“If you weren’t such a handsome bastard, I’d punch you,” Chase said.

“And why would you ever do that? I thought you said you loved me. Now _I’m_ heartbroken,” the man said, his tone of voice making a muscle in Chase’s jaw twitch.

“Eren, I swear to God. Just go back inside and find a random girl to make out with. You’ll scare off this girl before she can even enter the party.”

Eren flitted his eyes back over to you, and his plump lips pulled back to expose his white teeth. “Well, hello there,” he said to you as he wrapped an arm around Chase’s shoulders and leaned his weight on the other man. “I’ve never seen you around at a party we hosted before.”

“I… I just wanted to destress,” you managed to say, your heart pounding in your ears. “I’m-I’m just going to go home.” 

As you turned to leave, Eren cleared his throat. “Are you sure? You came all the way here dressed like that, so the least you could do is come in for a few minutes to warm back up,” he told you, and you stopped in your tracks. 

You shouldn’t—you knew that. A history project sat on your computer, begging for you to come back and finish it even though you’d much rather punch a hole in your screen. A soft breeze blew, and you hugged your body, cursing your caffeine-high mind for letting you choose an outfit that showed off all your insecurities. The thought of standing in a warm room, regardless that the heat was from a swarm of sweaty bodies, made you ponder it for a second longer before you let out a deep sigh. He smiled as you turned back around. 

“All right. Just a few minutes. That’s it,” you said, proud of yourself for not stuttering even though the freezing air nipped at your bare skin and Eren’s green eyes pinned you down to your spot, and he nodded. 

“Sounds good to me.”

Chase rolled his eyes. “I swear to God. You better not try to seduce her or anything, you hear? If I catch any wind of you touching her, I’ll make sure you can’t use your dick for a year,” he said, and Eren ooh’ed.

“That either means you’ll break my dick in half or you’ll exhaust it yourself. Kinda like the sound of the latter option,” Eren drawled, and a metal object glinted in the moonlight inside his mouth. How you hadn’t noticed it before was beyond you, but you blinked to see if you were hallucinating, and he noticed you looking at him, a smirk pulling the corner of his lip back. 

“I know I’m handsome, but if you stare too much, you’ll drill a hole into my face,” he said, and you cleared your throat in embarrassment. You caught sight of the metal object again, and you sucked in a breath through your nose when you noticed it was a piercing sitting at the tip of his tongue. 

Chase nudged Eren in the ribs with his elbow, and the black haired man grunted and smirked at the blond. With his arm wrapped over Chase’s shoulder, Eren grabbed the man’s jaw and turned his face towards his.

“If you want my attention so badly, you just have to ask for it, baby,” Eren said, and Chase rolled his eyes.

“You’re making the girl uncomfortable,” he replied as you blinked your eyes in surprise, their lips inches apart from each other. You felt like you were intruding on something personal.

“Sorry… what’s your name?” Eren asked you, and you gulped as he released Chase’s jaw and turned his green eyes back to your trembling body.

“Y/N…” you said, and he hummed, dropping his arm from Chase’s shoulders and shoving his hands into his pockets.

“Well, instead of staying out here and freezing your cute ass off by talking any more, why don’t we head inside now? I can get you something to drink if you’d like.”

“And give you the perfect chance to drug me? Sorry, I’ll pass,” you said, eyes widening and hand covering your mouth once the words left your mouth. “Sorry! I shouldn’t have said that.”

Chase hid a chuckle, and Eren glared at him. His eyes softened slightly when he looked back at you. “That’s understandable. But if you’re with me, no one will try anything funny with you, not even me. Also, I like that feisty attitude of yours. Kinda want to see more of it.” He released a deep breath. “We can just talk, if you’d like. You’ve piqued my interest now with that sentence.”

“I don’t know… A random frat boy I’ve never met before trying to drink with me at a party that I haven’t even entered? That’s a little suspicious,” you replied, ignoring your shaking body as his lip turned up in a smirk, his eyes looking down at you. 

“I know it may seem weird, but I have no bad intentions.” He placed a hand on his heart, his other hand raised up. “I swear it on Chase’s life.”

“Oh, fuck off, bastard. She’s fucking freezing, and here we are, still talking without letting her in. At the very least, give her your damn jacket around your waist, fucker,” Chase said, his jaw twitching.

Eren rolled his eyes and undid the knot of his jacket around his waist. He held out a hand for you, and you reached a hesitant hand towards it, unsure if you should accept it or not as it was from a stranger. Before your hand could close around it, his hand shot in the air and out of your reach.

“Give it to her, dumbass, before she kicks you in the dick.”

“Don’t you mean before _you_ kick me?”

Chase pursed his lips and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath to control his anger. Eren walked towards you, the jacket in his hands, and he unzipped it to place it around your shoulders. He leaned into your ear, his breath hitting the shell of your ear. The pine smell of his cologne hit your nose, and you held back the urge to take a deep breath.

“Don’t want your beautiful self to freeze to death, now do we?” he said, and you rolled your eyes, a gesture he didn’t miss. His lips turned into a smile as he pulled away from your ear.

“Get away from her and take her in already,” Chase said, and you tapped your chin.

“It _is_ awfully cold out here. Would be nice if we could go inside and talk. But nothing more than that,” you said to Eren, feeling comfortable enough to joke around with the man now.

“We can talk as long as you want, no sex,” he told you, and Chase scoffed.

“You’re the last person I trust to actually do as they say. I know you’ll seduce her the moment you get her alone, so I’m here to tell you something. Don’t. Fucking. Do. It,” he said through clenched teeth, shoving a finger into Eren’s sternum with each word.

“I’ll make it up to you, Chase,” Eren said, and Chase huffed.

“Jump off the top of the roof then.”

“Into the pool?”

“Onto the concrete, you dick.”

“Ouch, babes. I’m hurt.”

“Just fucking take her inside already.”

“All right. If you ever want to vent your frustrations out on me, I’ll be down, anytime. Your room or mine?” 

Chase kicked at him, and Eren laughed as he stepped out of the way. 

Eren puckered his lips and made kissing noises at Chase, who flicked him off, and Eren laughed. Chase walked back to the porch of the frat house and grabbed his drink. He turned back around to look at you and gave you a sympathetic look.

“If he causes you any trouble, just kick him and run off. He might look tough, but he has weak bones,” Chase told you, and Eren’s jaw dropped in offense.

“Hey! I’ll have you know that I’ve been drinking a lot of milk, so my bones are nice and dense!” Eren yelled at him, and Chase held up a middle finger at him before he disappeared into the house.

Eren chuckled and turned to look at you. “Coming?” he asked, and you tightened his jacket around your shoulders, stepping closer to him. The fabric hanging over your shoulders reduced your worries slightly, the amount of skin exposed to prying eyes decreased. 

He held out a hand for you to grab, his head bowed as if he were your butler, and you pursed your lips to stop yourself from chuckling at the fake gusto he presented with his body. You placed your hand in his as he helped you up the steps, his free arm circling behind your waist in case you fell, a few centimeters of air between his arm and your back. Chase had left the door open for the two of you, and you felt a soft warmth seep out of the entrance and brush against your body, teasing you to enter and taste the full extent of the heat. Your heels stepped over the entryway, and a wave of heat hit you as the heaps of sweaty bodies in the house moved around. The warmth of the room met you and mixed with the smell of sweat and booze that made your nose curl in distaste. Eren chuckled at your reaction and tapped your shoulder before pointing towards what you assumed to be the kitchen, and you nodded as he corralled you towards it. 

You stuck close to Eren as bodies dripping in perspiration pushed past you, a few stumbling into you in their drunken stupors, but he pulled you in front of him and out of most of their ways. A relieved breath left your lips when you reached the kitchen, and Eren nodded to a guy who stood behind the kitchen island and in front of a big case of alcohol.

“Yo, D’Marcus. How’s it going?” Eren said to the guy and held his hand up.

D’Marcus clasped Eren’s hand and pulled him in close to bump chests with him and pat him on the back. “As good as being bartender here will ever be. Would much rather be at my part-time, but you know Leon wouldn’t let me.”

“Leon only drinks shit you serve him, even if it’s the same shitty beer he could buy overpriced at a store.”

“Yeah, but not like I care that much.” D’Marcus sighed and flitted his eyes over to you, who tugged Eren’s jacket around you to cover up as much skin as possible and let your eyes wander around the kitchen to avoid his eyes. “Anyways what can I get you two? A beer?”

You blinked and looked at him. Eren opened his mouth to say something, but you interjected. “Um… unless you want me to die from having both caffeine and alcohol in my system, I’d like something non-alcoholic.”

Eren cleared his throat. “You heard the lady.”

D’Marcus nodded. “I’ll see what I can find.” As he turned away to dig through the fridge and piles of drinks behind him, Eren leaned against the kitchen island and fixed his gaze on you.

“So I’m guessing the reason you’re still shaking even after coming inside is because of all the coffee in your system, huh? Did you drink enough to keep you awake for a week or a month?” 

You rolled your eyes, cursing the caffeine thrumming through your veins for causing tremors in your body. “Haha. Very funny. It was just five cans of coffee.”

“Well, guess you’re staying up for quite some time then,” he said, and D’Marcus slid Eren a drink. When you glanced over to the man, he handed you a clear glass with a red liquid in it. 

“It’s cranberry juice, if you’re all right with that,” the man said, and you nodded. 

“Guess it will keep away any UTI’s,” Eren said as he tipped his drink back and cursed, his face twisting into disgust. “Fuck, I forgot how shitty this tasted.” He stuck his tongue out, his eyes screwing shut to forget the taste, and you noticed the tongue piercing again, eyes sticking to it for a few seconds longer than you wanted them to. You would have kept staring until he noticed and commented on it had D’Marcus not spoken up.

“Your fault for always asking for it.”

Your eyes flitted down to the drink of cranberry juice in your hand, and you took a tentative lap of it. Eren let out a deep chuckle.

“D’Marcus is one of the most trustworthy people anyone could know. He didn’t spike your drink if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Your ears burned as the two men looked at you after your kitten-lick of drink, and you shuffled from one foot to the other, wincing in pain as your stilettos dug into your heels and the bottoms of your feet throbbed. “The one I have to be worried about is you,” you said, trying to divert attention from your uncomfortable body language. 

“Hey, I’m not that much of a piece of shit, okay.”

“That still means you’re still a piece of shit,” D’Marcus chimed in, and you would have high fived him if you’d known him for more than five minutes. 

Eren rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah, Mr. Bartender. Run off to your part-time job now if you want to.”

“Yes, because I _really_ want to go from serving drinks to college students to serving drinks to adults with too much time on their hands and too little money,” D’Marcus said as he snatched the beer out of Eren’s hands and dumped it down the sink, much to the man’s dismay.

“I was still drinking that,” he complained.

The response he received was a glass of water in his hand. “Go sit down and let her rest her feet.”

At that, Eren turned to look towards you, his eyes widening when he noticed you shifting on your feet in discomfort. Without another word, he lead you towards a table in the kitchen with empty glasses scattered on top of it. He pushed them off into a trashcan and pulled out a chair for you to plop down into. 

“Aren’t you a true gentleman?” you said as you plopped down with a sigh of relief, the weight on your sore feet disappearing, and you took a swig of your drink. “Bet you do the same for a lot of girls to get on their good side.”

His chest rumbled with a deep laugh, and your chest tightened at the warm sound that caressed your ears. It felt like honey dripping from his lips, and you craved to hear more. He dropped into the chair across from you and rested his arms on the table to lean forward towards you, his glass of water hiding behind the safety of his arms.

“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. You’ll have to find out for yourself,” he told you with a smug smile that you were tempted to kiss off of his face. Maybe sleep deprivation was catching up to you and giving your brain strange ideas. 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” You took another sip of your drink and quirked an eyebrow at him. Your eyes looked to the clock on the kitchen wall. It was only two in the morning, but you knew you’d be here for a while. Thank fuck it was Saturday now. 

He chuckled again, and you squeezed your legs together. “I’m more interested in knowing why you’re on five cans of coffee if I’m being honest.”

You rolled your eyes with an irritated sigh as you sat your cup of half-finished cranberry juice onto the table, the memories of your history project waiting for you at your dorm resurfacing. “History project.”

Eren winced, understanding your pain. “Is it Mr. Witch’s class?”

Your eyes widened as you held back laughter. “You call him that too? And yes, it is his class. I’m just about ready to drop out of his class and become a stripper or something. I do not want to be in that class any longer, and I hate how it's a requirement to graduate.” If you had to listen to that professor’s nasally voice telling you about the Battle of Austerlitz again, you’d jump out the nearest window.

Eren leaned back in his seat with a sigh. “Tell me about it. I took his class last year just to get it out of the way, and I hated it so much! I swear he wanted to suck Napoleon’s dick with how much he talked about Austerlitz.” He rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands as he relived his time in the class from your words.

“Oh my God, I know! I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if he went into the museum where Napoleon’s dick supposedly is and stole it,” you added, and Eren sat up to fix you with a shocked gaze.

“There’s Napoleon’s dick in a museum?”

You nodded and sipped your drink. “I can’t remember which state it is, but it’s somewhere in America. It’s all mummified and shit. It has to be wrinklier than a raisin by now.”

Eren made a gagging noise as he imagined what Napoleon’s dick would look like now. “No, don’t say that! Now I have that image stuck in my mind.”

“You’re welcome,” you told him with a sweet smile, and you flitted your eyes over to the dispersing crowd in the common room, spotting a familiar face as they walked towards the kitchen.

Eren noticed your eyes focusing off into the distance, and he turned around in his seat to see who you were looking at as they entered the kitchen and talked to D’Marcus. A grin pulled his lips back and exposed his pearly white teeth. “Ay, Jay! Haven’t seen you in a few hours. Did you have fun with Kiara?”

You ducked down and hid your face behind a curtain of hair as your best friend Jayden turned towards Eren when he called out to them. Even over the pounding music, you could hear the sound of their feet stepping closer to you, your heart dropping the closer they came. They fist bumped Eren.

“Yo, Eren. Left her sleeping up in Chase’s room. Don’t tell him.” They leaned against the table and looked at Eren, ignoring your presence for the moment. “Thought you were busy with Silvia and Isara.”

Eren cleared his throat when he saw you peer at him through your hair. “They were after Chase, so I left them be. They’re probably holding him up right now and asking him what his self-care routine is.”

“And so you’re sitting in the kitchen instead of dancing on the floor and finding a new girl for the night.”

You tensed slightly at those words. You didn’t want to be a random girl he was using to waste time tonight. You had enough of being used and dropped the next moment. Before you could listen to more and feel even more stupid for wasting your time with him, Eren interjected Jayden.

“Ah, no! I’m talking with someone. I don’t feel like searching for someone at the moment. I’m good right here,” he said, and you paused, giving Jayden enough time to drag their eyes over to you and catch a glimpse of your face.

Their eyes widened, jaw dropping as they realized it was you. “Y/N?! I-I wasn’t expecting you to come to this party.”

Eren flitted his eyes between the two of you, his finger pointing at you both as he moved his attention from you to Jayden. “You two know each other?”

“We’re roommates…” you said, taking a sip from your drink to avoid their eyes on you..

“And friends since primary school.” Jayden scooted next to Eren and leaned over the table on their hands to look you in the eyes. “Who do you think put her in that outfit? If she had the choice, she would have either never come or would have shown up in her pajamas.” Their eyes dragged over your torso, lingering on Eren’s jacket around your shoulders, and you pulled it tighter around you. “I’m glad to see you stepping out of your comfort zone.”

You nodded with pursed lips, silently cursing the fact that you had run into them. You would have much rather preferred to have never seen them here and for them to never know you had stopped by the party. Jayden would now bug you about moving on and getting better from how you were before, and you didn’t need to hear the false praise from them about letting the past go that would enter one ear and exit the other.

“She does look good in it, but it’s not the best outfit for this weather,” Eren said, sipping from his water and groaning about D’Marcus dumping the beer down the drain several minutes ago.

Jayden whipped their attention towards him, eyes widened and burning with unspoken threats. “If you so much as even try to touch her, I will cut your dick off and staple it to your forehead.” 

“At least take me on a date first before you see my dick, Jay. I’ll let you cut it off afterwards,” Eren said, chuckling when Jayden rolled their eyes at him with a huff.

“Puh-lease. Half the girls and guys in this university have seen your dick.” They crossed their arms and fixed him with an incredulous look. “Just because you have a big dick doesn’t mean everyone wants to see it.”

You choked on your drink at their words, and as you coughed, Jayden and Eren looked at you. Jayden smirked.

“Ooh, she heard her two favorite words: big dick.” They leaned in close to you across the table. “I assure you, his ego is bigger than his cock, and you don’t want to deal with that first. Save yourself the trouble and either head home or find someone else to talk to.”

“Hey, I have much more to me than my big dick and big ego,” Eren chimed in.

Jayden looked back at him. “Like your insatiable sex drive?” When he shrugged, they sighed. “Don’t be swayed by him, Y/N. He may sweet talk you, but don’t fall for it.” 

What might have been playful words for them dug deep into the cuts that had yet to heal, and you nodded. You should get out of there before you got strung along and led down a familiar path you knew all too well of how the end looked.

“I’ll have you know that that is not my intention tonight. Can’t a guy just chat with a pretty lady?”

“Yeah, yeah. Just no funny business, and I mean it, you hear?” Jayden flipped their fingers between her eyes and Eren’s as they walked backwards. “She’s very fragile, so don’t hurt her with your fuckboy-ness.”

Eren saluted. “Aye aye, captain,” he said, and they rolled their eyes before blowing you a kiss of disappearing back into the crowd that whittled down from its original size. Once they left, he looked back at you. “Do you want to leave now?”

Though you were wary of him once again, you tried to hide it with a soft smirk. “What makes you say that?”

He hummed and tapped the table. “Well, you don’t seem too comfortable around me anymore. If Jay said something that made you uncomfortable with me, I’m sorry. I promise I’m not trying to get into your pants—or under your dress, I should say.”

The smug fuckboy he had appeared to you as with Chase turned into a man who seemed desperate not to lose your company. You liked talking to him, and you hated how his words calmed you down and made you trust him. If you fell for the same thing twice, you’d never be able to live with yourself. 

“Oh, really? Why do I find that hard to believe?” you joked, and his tongue swiped across his bottom lip. 

“You are breathtaking, but I’m not a minless sex addict. I can talk normally if I want to. I like talking to you, and I don’t want to chase you off with unwanted sexual advances,” he said.

“Do you say this to a lot of people?” You tipped your head back and finished the last of your drink off before you tossed it into the trash.

Eren chuckled, tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth. “Wow, I’m hurt. You don’t trust my words?”

“After learning how you have an ‘insatiable sex drive’, as Jayden said, I’m not taking my chances. Who knows how many people you’ve told this, only to seduce them and have sex with them.” You rested your head in your hands as you fixed him with a serious look, your lips offering him a soft smile. “I’ll let you know now that I didn’t come here for that anyways.”

“That works for me. Junior needs a break. Plus, talking to you keeps everyone else from bothering me,” Eren said as he leaned back in his chair, an arm slinging across the back and his legs spreading. He looked around, and you followed his eyes to see people staring at him but not daring to come closer when they spotted you across from him.

“First off,” you held up one finger, “don’t refer to your dick as ‘Junior’ ever again. And second off,” a second finger stood up to join the first, “that means you’re using me to keep people away. I feel like insect repellent.” You set your hand down on the table and looked at him.

Eren pouted and looked down at his lap. “She doesn’t like your name, buddy. I’m sorry she’s so mean.” When you scoffed at his behavior, he smiled at you. “Maybe I am using you, but aren’t I just a way for you to ignore your history project? Not that I mind, but I’m sure your project misses seeing your sexy face twisted into frustration.”

You opened your mouth to let out sarcastic laughter, but a voice interrupted you. 

“Eren! What the hell are you doing sitting here?” a man called as he walked up and slapped Eren on the back. Eren winced but offered a genuine smile.

“I can’t sit down and talk with someone, Izuki? If you want to dance with someone, why don’t you go find Tony?” Eren said in a light tone to gently tell the man to leave.

Izuki rolled his eyes. “Come on, he’s gone out to walk off the alcohol in his system. Just come dance so that the girls will gather.” He grabbed Eren’s arm and tried to pull him out of his chair towards the dance floor. 

“I’m talking to someone, Izuki.”

The man stopped pulling Eren and looked towards you. You let out a deep breath. “If you want to dance, you can. I won’t hold you back. I’ve taken more than enough of your time.” When they said nothing, you cleared your throat. “I’ll just ask D’Marcus for another drink,” you said and excused yourself from the table to rush over to the man at the kitchen aisle. 

“See? She said it’s fine, so come on! It’s Pony by Ginuwine right now. If you dance to the song, the girls will go crazy. Help a dude out!”

D’Marcus sighed as he overheard Izuki, and he handed you another glass of cranberry juice when you stopped in front of him. You thanked him before taking a sip. Your eyes watched as Izuki struggled to pull Eren from his seat, wondering if you should do anything.

“Does this happen a lot?” you decided to ask D’Marcus, to which he hummed as he cleaned the empty glass you had handed him.

“If you mean Izuki’s exploitation of Eren to gain the attention of girls, then yes, sadly. His thought process is that if there are enough girls, then there will surely be at least one that will settle for him instead of Eren for a night.”

You scrunched your face in distaste at Izuki’s tactics as you swirled the juice around in the cup. After saying another thank you to D’Marcus for the drink, you walked back to the table and slammed the cup on the table, startling Eren and Izuki.

“What the hell?!” Izuki shouted when he jumped in shock, and you gave him a forced smile.

“I just remembered that I asked Eren if he wouldn’t mind walking me back home, so I’d appreciate it if you would stop trying to drag my rapist repellent into your desperate attempts to get laid,” you told him, glaring at him through slitted eyes. He shuddered under your gaze, and Eren chuckled.

“Didn’t know I went from being your talking buddy for the night to your body guard. It’s a nice promotion if I’m being honest,” Eren said, and Izuki pursed his lips, the cogs in his mind turning to try to find out a way to keep Eren here for his plans.

“Let me just use the restroom really quickly,” you said and fixed a steely gaze on Izuki in warning.

“I’ll wait for you,” Eren said, and you nodded.

“If he’s disappeared when I come back, I’m coming for you first,” you told Izuki, and when his throat bobbed and he nodded, you blew him a kiss and walked off down the hall. Eren yelled out the location of the toilet to you, and you knocked on the door, hoping you weren’t about to walk in on two people making out in the restroom. No response came, and you cracked the door open to see a dark room. 

You flipped the switch and sighed when no strange noise or sights greeted you. After you relieved your bladder, you stared at yourself in the mirror while you let warm water run over tour soap covered hands in the sink.

“‘Rapist repellent?’” you asked yourself, giving yourself a questioning look. “You couldn’t come up with a better excuse to get Izuki to leave him alone? You literally live in the dorm five minutes away! God, he must think you’re stupid! Why did you even say anything? Maybe he does actually want to dance, huh… Have you ever thought about that, Y/N? You could have said that he was dancing with you instead, but no, you said he was walking you home.” You rolled your eyes at yourself and placed your hands on the corners of the sink after you dried them, your shoulders scrunching up as you dropped your weight onto your hands. “It would have been better if you just said nothing!”

A knock on the door sounded, and you froze. An unfamiliar voice spoke. “Are you done in there?” they asked, and you opened the door, bowing your head to them in apology before you rushed past them and tugging Eren’s jacket around yourself.

You spotted Eren at the same table, no one around him, and you sighed in relief as you walked over to him. His eyes shot up to you, and he smiled at you. 

“Almost thought you ran away. I was finally promoted to rapist repellent. It would have been a shame if it was a lie,” Eren said, and you let out a deep breath as you plopped down into your seat.

“Well, sorry to disappoint, but it was my pathetic choice of words for an excuse,” you told him, hiding your face in your hands. He chuckled, and you looked up at him.

“So does that mean you’re not going home, or that you are and just don’t want me to protect you?” He quirked an eyebrow at you, and you rolled your eyes and reached for your drink in the middle of the table.

“Shut up.” You tried to grab your drink, but your hand bumped it, and in an instant the red contents spilled onto the table, splashing onto Eren's white shirt. Your eyes widened when he jumped up and showed the red stain on his shirt. “Shit! I-I’m so sorry! I didn’t… I didn’t mean to do that. Uh… Uh… Uh…” You whipped your head around as you tried to think of what to do. As the restroom door opened and closed, a thought hit you. “Toilet.” You grabbed Eren’s wrist and dragged him towards the toilet, only for him to stop in his tracks. When you looked at him, he pulled you up the stairs onto the next floor before walking into a room.

“Someone went into the restroom downstairs,” he said when your eyebrows furrowed at him, and he flipped a switch to expose a restroom to you. 

You started snooping through the cabinets, something you probably shouldn’t have done in front of one of the home’s residents, but you were too nervous to care. “Hydroxide, where is it?” You screwed your eyes shut and smacked yourself upside the head. “Fuck, Y/N, it’s cranberry juice, not blood! Think, you idiot! What did mom say to do to remove cranberry juice after uncle tried to show off his white clothes that supposedly repelled liquids?” You snapped your fingers. “Alcohol and vinegar!” You let out a relieved sigh when you spotted rubbing alcohol and vinegar in the sink cabinet. 

Eren leaned against the wall as he watched you scurry around and mix the two liquids together, lips curved into an amused smirk. “I almost missed seeing you act all nervous.” You didn’t respond, and he continued. “While you were sexy when you were talking to me comfortably, your nervousness is cute.”

You ignored his words and turned around, eyes fixating on the pinkish stain on his shirt. “Strip,” you said.

He gasped in fake offence. “At least take me out for dinner first.”

You rolled your eyes, not caring about how dirty you had sounded before. “Unless you want to keep wearing a stained shirt, I suggest you take it off so that I can clean it.”

His eyes flitted down to his shirt, and he shrugged. “I kinda like it. It’s like a statement piece that reminds me of the pretty girl who spilled the drink on me.” When you readied yourself to leave, he rushed forward. “Okay, okay! I’ll take it off. You don’t have to be so worried about the shirt. I can always buy another one.” 

Instead of answering, you held out a hand.

“I assume that’s for the shirt and not because you’re asking me for a dance in this room,” he said, and your eyes squinted at him. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He grabbed the neck of his shirt and pulled it off in one swift motion.

Your eyes widened, mouth dropping open as you froze in your spot. He had a fucking ten pack. His muscles rippled as he reached out to hand you the shirt, but he stopped when he noticed your eyes on him. The muscles in his forearms flexed as he crossed his arms over his chest, and you gulped as you dragged your eyes down his stomach to his V cut that disappeared under his jeans and made you want to see more. 

“Like what you see?” Eren said, his voice dripping in cockiness as you fucked him with your eyes.

“Yes.” You didn’t mean to say that. Fuck his nice muscles for turning your brain to mush.

His tongue swiped across his bottom lip, his tongue piercing greeting you and making a heartbeat pulse in your lower half. He walked closer to you, his feet thumping against the ground serving to increase the racing of your heart. You backed up until your back hit the door, and he caged you against it with his arms. Your eyes focused on his face, desperate to not trail them down to his abs that begged for your attention. You couldn’t tell if it was the right choice when he looked at you with eyes that burned with an insatiable sexual desire.

“You shouldn’t lead me on like that. You’ll get my hopes up that maybe you want something too,” he said, voice deepening as he leaned into your ear to whisper the words, his breath fanning against the shell of your ear.

The warmth from his body made you want to push yourself against him and wrap your arms around his broad shoulders. “Maybe I do,” you whispered back, breathless.

He bit his lip and looked you straight in the eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

You were ready to grab the back of his neck and smash your lips into his, but the rational part of your brain reminded you about the stained shirt waiting for you. “But the shirt….”

“I’ll buy a new one,” he said as he leaned closer to your face. “Can I kiss you?”

You shouldn’t do it, but fuck, his green eyes were so mesmerizing and kept pulling you in. Against, better judgement, you focused your eyes on his lips and uttered the words you should have kept inside. “Yes,” you said, your mind finally saying fuck it and telling you to indulge in this while you could.

Eren’s lips ghosted across yours, and you let out a shuddering breath in anticipation. Before he connected your lips, he stopped and looked at you. “Are you sure?”

Impatience coursed through you, and you rolled your eyes. “Yes, you bastard,” you told him and grabbed the back of his neck to push your lips together. 

Your body weight pushed onto him as you leaned into him to deepen the kiss, and his hands shot to grip your waist to stabilize you. You tangled a hand in his messy bun and used your hold to tilt his head to the side as you moved your lips against his in an erratic manner. Though you wouldn't admit it outright, your eyes had flitted to his lips several times over the time you spent talking to him, wondering how they’d feel against yours, and now that the softness pressed against you, you needed more.

Eren pulled you closer to his chest, a muscular arm slithering behind your waist to keep you flush against him, and he pushed you back against the wall, his other hand slipping underneath your dress to ghost over your thigh. You sighed against his lips as the rough pads of his fingers sent goosebumps erupting across your skin. The corner of his lip pulled back into a smirk as he looked into your eyes and saw the raw lust burning inside them, your body pressing against him to touch as much of his warm skin as possible. 

You slammed your lips back into his, and he moved his lips against yours in a slow rhythm that left you impatient. You desired something more—something rougher, messier. You swiped your tongue across his bottom lip, and when he opened his mouth, you slipped your tongue inside. He hummed into your mouth, liking your assertiveness as you tangled your tongue with his. His tongue piercing prodded against your tongue, and you groaned in anticipation, wondering how it would feel against other parts of you. You rolled his piercing around with your tongue, ignoring the flavor of cheap beer in his mouth to instead focus on the way his breathing came out shallower as your tongue moved around inside of his mouth. 

His hand on your thigh gripped your flesh when you sucked on his tongue, and his breathing stopped. You retreated your tongue back into your mouth and smiled against his lips when he tilted your head back to press his tongue into your mouth. You sighed through your nose and dropped a hand down against his chest that flexed beneath your hand as his tongue swiped around your mouth, his piercing pressing into every crevice he could reach. When your lungs burned, begging you for air, you pulled his head back, a string of saliva connecting your tongues before it broke, and pants left both you and Eren as you stared into each other’s eyes. You felt his heart pounding beneath your hand, and you knew your pulse was pounding at the same rate.

The jacket around your shoulders slipped off of you and crumpled to the floor, exposing more skin to his hungry eyes. He licked his lips and looked ready to bend down to kiss your necks and breasts, but you tugged his head back to keep his eyes off of your body. He let out a deep groan as you pulled at his hair, and you squeezed your legs together as the sound reached your core and made it burn. With his head tilted back, his neck stared at you, his Adam’s apple bobbing in anticipation, and you placed your lips underneath it to suck a hickey against his tan skin. He sighed as you nipped at his neck, his hand on your thigh picking it up and wrapping it around his waist to press his bulge against your clothed opening. 

A surprised gasp pushed past your swelling lips as you felt his large bulge against you, and you rutted your hips against his. You continued sucking hickeys against his neck, trailing them down to his chest as your hand released his hair and traced the dips in his abs. 

“Fuck…” he hissed as you nipped at his abs, a shuddering breath leaving him. You dropped to your knees in front of him, his bulge right in your face.

You licked your lips in anticipation, but before you could undo his belt and unzip his pants, he grabbed your hands. You looked up at him with big eyes, wondering why he stopped you, and he groaned at how ready you looked to take him into your mouth right there.

“Let’s move this to a bed,” he said, and you didn’t get the chance to complain when he pulled you up to your feet, hands pressing below your ass to tell you to jump into his arms. You didn’t have to be told twice, and you wrapped your legs around his waist as he supported you beneath your ass. 

He opened the restroom door as you gripped the side of his face and pressed a messy kiss against his lips, wanting to feel his tongue pressing around inside your mouth. He complied with your wishes, and as he walked to another room, he licked around inside your mouth. You heard a door creak open, and darkness surrounded the two of you. The smell of musk and a woody scent hit you and reminded you of Eren’s cologne. You took a deep breath to let the scent seep into your lungs and spread throughout your body. As the door closed behind him, he lifted a hand to click the lights on, and you pulled away from Eren’s lips to tug on his hair.

“Wait, keep the lights off,” you said when he looked at you with his eyebrows furrowed, and his fingers stopped in their place. 

You peeled off your stilettos as he slipped off his shoes, and his hand went back to below your ass as he walked over to the bed and sat down with you straddling him. The bulge in his pants prodded against you, and you groaned as you ground yourself down on him. A hand gripped the side of his face as your lips moved against his, and his hands slipped beneath your dress to run across your bare skin. He pulled away from you and pressed wet kisses against your neck, soft gasps leaving you as you tilted your head back. You pursed your lips to hold back a moan when he nipped at the dip between your neck and shoulders, hips grinding down onto him from the sudden pleasure. 

“God, you’re hot,” Eren groaned against your skin as the spot he nipped began turning purple and red beneath his lips. 

While one hand gripped your waist, his other hand trailed down to grip your ass. When he tried to pull your panties down, you gripped his hand and slipped off of his lap. He looked at you with wide eyes and an open mouth, but when you dropped down to your knees in front of him, he chuckled and watched with hazy eyes as you fumbled with his belt. Once you slipped it off, you threw it to the side and unzipped his jeans. 

You bit your lip when his bulge looked you in the eyes, and you ran a hand over it. Eren’s breathing came out in a restrained hiss, and his dick twitched inside his boxers. You wasted no time in pulling his pants and boxers down, his cock springing out. Your heart dropped down to your pussy when you saw how big it was. It wouldn’t even fit halfway into your mouth. 

A hesitant hand gripped the base of his cock, and it throbbed in your palm. Your hand slid up his shaft, and your thumb rolled around his tip to spread his precum and allow for some lubrication. You pushed his legs apart as you started flicking your wrist up and down his length, biting your lip when he let out a deep groan that reverberated inside you and made your pussy throb. 

You placed a kiss against his wet tip, ignoring the bitter taste of precum against your lips, and he shuddered beneath you as your grip tightened slightly around him while you moved it up and down. Your tongue licked at his slit before you swirled it around his head and took a tentative bob down his length to push his head into your mouth before you pulled back up and kitten-licked the tip. A hand held the back of your head as you dipped your head down and licked a stripe up the side of his shaft. Your lips spread over his head as you took his tip back into your mouth and sucked on it like a lollipop. 

“Shit, stop teasing me like that,” he groaned out, and you looked up at him to see his jaw clenching and eyes peering right into yours. 

In response, you sunk your head down on his length while maintaining eye contact, and he screwed an eye shut, the other staring into your lust-filled eyes. A wet sound echoed through the room as you bobbed your head up and down his length, relaxing your jaw and opening your throat each time you went down to take more of him into your mouth. Tears sprung up in your eyes as your throat expanded to take him deeper into you, but an insatiable heat spread through you that took over your senses. As your throat closed around his length, both of your hands made work of what you couldn’t fit into your mouth. Your hands twisted around the base of his cock and moved along the length while massaging his balls in them whenever they went down. 

His cock swelled in your mouth, heavy and hot against your tongue, and you felt an uncomfortable wetness in your panties. You pulled a hand away from his shaft to slip it under your dress and into your panties. A finger swiped along your wet slit, and you moaned onto his dick as you circled your finger around your hard clit with the lubrication from your entrance. Eren gripped the back of your head as your sounds vibrated down his length, and he groaned, a sound that went straight to your pussy and made it clench around nothing.

You pressed your middle finger into your entrance, your warm walls pulsing as you pushed your finger down to its knuckle as your thumb swirled around your clit. You lifted your head off of his cock with a loud pop, and you pressed open mouth kisses to his shaft as you pumped your fingers in and out of you. Eren’s heavy pants as he watched you finger yourself in front of him only added to the arousal you felt, and your body twitched under his gaze as you licked his dick while your other hand pressed it against the flat of your tongue. 

“Shit, you’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” he said, and you only took him back into your mouth in response, your eyes flitting up to his with so much lust that his hips suddenly thrusted into your throat as a reaction to the warmth of your mouth encasing him again. “Are you all right?” he asked when you pulled away to cough. 

“I want you to cum on my face,” you said instead, and he let out a breathy chuckle.

“You’re one hell of a girl,” he said but didn’t disagree. “If that’s what you want, who am I to object?”

You opened your mouth and positioned your head below his cock as your hand sped up on his length. His breathing came out in short pants, his body tensing beneath your hands, and you chuckled as you knew he was close. His body jerked when the hot breath from your laugh hit his cock, and he screwed his eyes shut.

Your fingers sped up inside you, tightening your hand around his length as it swelled and twitched in your hand. You wanted to orgasm as he cummed on you, but as the heat in your core began to spread, his cock twitched once more before he shot his thick cum on your face with a drawn out moan that made your pussy convulse. Some of his cum dripped down your face and hit your exposed chest, slipping down your skin. As you licked the cum dripping from his head and kept moving your hands inside your to chase your orgasm that was just within grasp, he pulled your head off of his dick and smirked at you. He gripped your arm, stopping your fingers from moving inside of you, and you looked up at him as he pulled your hand out of your pussy with a wet sound and held it up.

“Aren’t you impatient?” he said as he gripped your wrist in his hand. “Should I return the favor for you?”

“Yes please…” you whispered out, shuddering as you imagined his tongue swiping across your dripping entrance. You licked the cum off around your mouth, using your hands to swipe the other spots before you stuffed your fingers into your mouth. As you sat down on the bed and spread your legs, exposing your soaked panties to his prying eyes as he switched places with you. 

You swirled your tongue around your fingers and shoved them down your throat to get as much of his cum off them as you could. Your breathing stopped when he hooked a finger around the side of your panties and slipped them down your thighs. He tugged at your dress, and you slipped it off to offer as much space for him to touch you. His hands ran along your inner thighs as they pushed your legs apart and showed your pulsing entrance to him. 

His tongue swiped across his lips, and he pressed kisses to your inner thighs, working his way up to your entrance. He grabbed your hips and pulled your lower half closer to his face, your upper body flopping onto the mattress. Your hand covered your mouth when his hot breath fanned across your dripping opening. He ran the pad of his thumb across your slit, watching as your body convulsed. He pressed kisses around your opening, and you opened your mouth to tell him to hurry up when his tongue piercing pressed into your clit. 

Your body twitched as the warm metal prodded against your bundle of nerves, sending pleasure shooting through your body. You gripped the back of his head as his tongue swirled around your clit, the piercing rolling your clit and sending heat pooling in your core as more arousal dripped from your entrance. Eren’s hands gripped your thighs, and he sucked on your clit, smirking when you let out an aching whine, your hips jutting up. A hand moved to your hips to push your body back down, and he moved down to your entrance, the tip of his tongue poking your pulsing entrance.

A loud, filthy moan pushed past your lips when his tongue entered you, the piercing pushing against your walls and making pleasure shoot up wherever he pressed. Your legs tried to squeeze together as arousal coursed through you, but his hand on your thighs kept them apart while he thrusted his tongue into you. Staccato moans poured from your lips with each movement of his tongue inside your opening. He pulled his tongue out and licked a stip up to your clit before he swirled his piercing around it once more and sucked on it, loving the way you twitched and tried to hide your whimpers of pleasure.

“Don’t hold back. I want to hear you,” he said before he lapped at your opening. “God, you taste so good.”

You peeled your hand off your mouth and lifted your back off the mattress to watch him eat you out. The hand on the back of his head tightened around his hair, and he groaned against you, to which you mewled as it vibrated inside you.

“Right-right there!” you breathed out when his tongue slithered back inside you and thrusted deep inside. “Fuck yes!”

Your hand on the back of his head pushed his face against your entrance. He continued moving his tongue and pressed it into the spot you begged for him to, and the heat inside you burned in your entrance, spreading through your body as you tensed up. He smirked as he noticed your high reaching you, and he kept his pace consistent as your back began arching. 

A drawn out, heavy moan left you as your legs shook, body tensing and back arching as the heat spread throughout your entire body in a sudden wave of pleasure that made your mouth stay open in a silent moan long after it hit you. Your eyes rolled back in your head, and your grip on his hair tightened even more as he kept swiping his tongue along your entrance, sucking on your clit and rolling it around on his piercing. You whined in over-stimulation as he helped you ride out your orgasm, and as it calmed down, you laid back on the bed, closing your eyes to let your high leave you. Your senses went dull as the pleasure left you numb. The sound of something closing reached your ringing ears, and you opened your eyes when the bed dipped to see Eren kneeling next to your feet, a condom in his mouth as he spread your legs and jerked his cock to get it harder than it already was. 

“Can I put it in you?” he asked, and you nodded. He squeezed his eyes shut as he jerked himself in front of you. The moonlight streaming through his window and casting shadows on his muscular body, impatience coursing through you as you waited for him to slip the condom on. “This is the last one, so we better make it count,” he said, and you silently cursed at him for not stocking up more. You expected his cabinets to be brimming with condoms, but maybe he had gone through all of them before you got here.

You covered your eyes with your arm as he slipped the condom on, and when his tip pressed against your entrance, you sucked in a breath. He pushed into you, and you bit your lip, tasting blood as your walls stretched to accommodate his size. While you knew he was big from having him in your mouth, he felt even bigger inside you. You felt like you were being ripped in half, and a tear slipped down your cheek.

“Shit, sorry!” Eren cursed, pulling out and leaving your opening clenching around nothing. You pulled your arm off your eyes and opened your mouth to say something, but when a finger swiped along your opening, you closed your mouth. His finger disappeared inside you, and he slipped another one in as your wetness coated his digits and lubricated them. As he pumped his fingers inside you and spread them to open you up, he leaned over you and grabbed a bottle of lube. “Got too impatient,” he rasped as you clenched around his fingers. 

“Hurry,” you begged, wanting his cock back in you regardless of how much it hurt. 

“Just a little more, baby. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Your back arched when he curled his fingers inside you and suddenly added a third, stretching you out, eyes widening and mouth opening in a silent moan. “Now… please! I can’t wait anymore,” you said, tugging at his arm to get him to pull it out and replace it with something else. 

“But-” he started, but you sat up and pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips.

“Please…” you said breathlessly against his skin. You laid back down onto your back and spread your legs. He slid between them and held his cock in his hand. 

“Try to relax, okay?” he said, his head prodding against your entrance again, and you nodded before taking a deep breath. 

He grunted as he pushed back inside you, your walls tightening around him instantly and trying to push him out. You let out deep breaths to stay relaxed as he pushed deeper into you, his short fingering helping to stretch you out a little bit. A tear still slipped out of your eyes as a small bit of pain shot through you, and he leaned over you to press his lips to yours. You clutched at his back, fingernails digging into his skin as his lips moved against yours to distract you from the pain. He stopped moving suddenly, and you pulled away from his lips.

“Are you all in?” you asked as you felt full inside, and he looked down at where he was connected to you.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, and you sighed as you clenched around him.

“Move,” you told him, and he gulped, slowly moving in and out of you. 

You clutched at his back as your hole opened and closed around his size, and he kissed your neck. He tried to trail his lips down to your breasts, but you pulled his face back up to your lips. He shoved his tongue back into your mouth as he sped up his pace, and you moaned into his mouth as he rubbed against your walls. When you tried to pull away from his lips, he chased your lips and caught them once more as his hips snapped into you. 

You tangled your tongue in his as you let out a pleased hum. He pulled away from you suddenly to sit back on his legs, your hands falling from his shoulders and face as his hands gripped your hips to yank you down onto his cock each time he thrusted into you. Your back arched when he slammed deep into you, and you managed to look down, only to see him halfway inside you. You bit your lip and covered your eyes back up with your arm. 

“God, you’re so big!” you said, and he chuckled, apologizing afterwards.

He hooked your legs around his waist as he crawled closer to you and pushed more of his length into you. You trembled as over half of him entered you, filling you up even more than you thought he could. Your free hand trailed down to your stomach where you felt him bulging out. A shuddering breath left him when you pressed against the spot his head poked out inside you, and you peered at him from beneath your arm.

“Don’t… don’t look at me like that, please,” you whispered out as you saw his eyes trailing over your body, bottom lip gripped between his teeth as a bead of sweat dripped down his jaw and neck, and he grunted as he slid out of your before slamming back in. 

You opened your mouth to object once more after the moan he induced left you, but he flipped you onto your stomach, still thrusting into you. Your face pressed against his pillow as he gripped your hips and pulled you against his pelvis, all of his cock slipping into you suddenly and causing your mouth open as moans disappeared into his pillow, the sound of skin slapping echoing in your ears and mixing with his grunts to make your legs tremble.

Your back arched as you pressed yourself against him, the tight grip on your hips spreading a dull pleasure through your body. He leaned over your back and pressed kisses to your shoulder blades, and you sighed into the pillow before he slammed into you. A high-pitched moan left you as he continued to slam into you, his dick pressing deeper and deeper into you with each thrust and hitting a bundle of nerves inside you.

“Fuck, yes! Just like that…” you said, and he cursed behind you when you squeezed him. 

“Shit, you’re so fucking tight,” he ground out, and you buried your head into the pillow to hide your moans. Your legs trembled at his words, the strained rasp of his voice doing things to your body. 

He trailed a hand from your waist up your torso to grip at your breast, and you gasped as his big, warm hands kneaded your flesh in his palm. You clenched around him uncontrollably when he twisted your nippled between his fingers, and he hissed.

“You’re doing this on purpose,” he said, and you tilted your head back.

“Doing what?” you replied in an innocent tone of voice, and he chuckled hoarsely.

“Being so fucking sexy. You’re gonna make me lose my mind,” he told you, and you peered at him over your shoulder, circling your hips around as he thrusted into you, and he bit his lip.

“Just lose your mind already then,” you teased, and the hand gripping your tit tightened. He twisted your nippled and pulled on it, and you dropped your face back into the pillow to cry out in pleasure. 

“Don’t mind if I do.” 

He pulled himself out until only his head remained inside you, and you wanted to complain, but he shoved all of his length into you all at once and continued to slam all of his length deep into you at a fast pace that made it hard for you to keep up. You felt light headed as he thrusted deep inside of you into parts you didn’t even know could be reached, and your hands gripped at the sides of the pillow case. As he thrusted into you, his movements turned sloppier, and you lifted your head from the pillow, your high still off in the distance.

“Wait, not-not yet,” you said. “I wanna cum together.”

His forehead touched your back as he let out a breathy sound, his hand on your hip tightening as his hand on your breast massaged it. “You have a lot of demands.”

“Please.”

“Of course, baby girl,” he said, and he moved his hand on your breast to your entrance he kept snapping his hips into, his fingers rubbing at your clit and making your body lurch forward. You panted into the pillow as heat pooled back into your lower half, the pleasure from your hole and clit overpowering. His grunts didn’t help, only adding to the heat and making it hotter. 

As his pace sped up, you whimpered into the pillow and clenching around him. He released a guttural moan as he came inside the condom, the way his cock swelled inside you making you shudder as the heat finally built up, spreading throughout your whole body as you convulsed beneath him, your high hitting you like a truck. He hissed as you sucked him dry before you fell forward. He pulled out of you and threw his condom away, and your body felt heavy. Your eyelids sank over your eyes, and you tried to keep them open, but they closed, darkness enveloping you. 

Your eyes shot open in an instant, and a weight around your middle grabbed your attention and pulled it towards a shirtless and sleeping Eren beside you, his arm laying across your middle as he laid on his stomach. His back muscles tensed as your movements pushed his arm, and you froze, catching the red scratches on his shoulder blades. You looked down to see an oversized t-shirt covering your torso.

“You fucking idiot! Why did you do that, Y/N?” you whispered to yourself, hissing in pain as your bottom half throbbed in pain. 

You tried to move from underneath Eren’s arm, but when you shuffled around, he groaned and tightened his arm around your middle, pulling you closer to him as he flipped onto his side and drew you flush against his chest. Though the warmth from his body against the soreness you felt made you relax, you had to leave before he woke up. This wasn’t supposed to happen, even though you did enjoy it. You couldn’t make the same mistake twice.

As you tried to shimmy out of his grasp, Eren grunted and grumbled. You froze when he blinked sleepy eyes at you. 

“Where are you going?” he said, voice raspy, and it would have sent shivers down your spine had you not been freaking out over how to escape this situation.

“Uh… restroom,” you said, and his grip on you loosened enough for you to slip out of them and clatter to the floor as your legs gave out beneath you. You yelped when your sore shorts-clad lower half hit into the ground, but Eren seemed to have fallen back asleep and didn’t pay attention to you. Instead of waiting around for him to actually wake up, you jumped to your feet—or more like stumbled to your feet like a newborn baby deer—and slipped out of his room. 

The floorboards creaked underneath your feet as you walked past the restroom, and you contemplated for a minute whether to go in quickly or just run home. You opted for heading home so that you wouldn’t get caught by anyone and hoped the cranberry juice from the night before would be enough to protect you from a possible UTI. Voices came from downstairs and reached your ears, making you pause on the stairs.

“Kiara, what the fuck happened to you?” a male voice said.

“Jayden.” A female voice, followed by the sound of a chair scraping against the floor. “Fix me a pancake, too, Chase. Mama’s hungry.”

“Don’t refer to yourself as ‘Mama’ ever again, or I’ll kick you out instantly,” the familiar voice of Chase replied. 

They were in the kitchen, where you had to pass by to get to the entrance. Yes, there was a fair amount of space between the two areas, but you didn’t have the cover of several sweaty bodies to hide behind. You crept down the stairs and paused when it creaked under your weight. The chatter at the table stopped.

“Eren? Are you finally up?” D’Marcus asked, and you covered your mouth. “Guess not,” he said when no answer came.

“That bastard. If he doesn’t wake up soon, I swear I’m going to throw a bucket of water on him. It’s his damn turn to buy groceries, the fucker. All the eggs will be gone if he doesn’t wake up now and get his ass over to the store!” Chase said, and he slammed the skillet in his hand on the stove, the pancake batter splashing around inside.

“Don’t fuck up my pancakes, Chase!” Kiara said.

“Make them yourself. I’m waking Eren’s ass up right now and kicking him out.”

“Not a good idea, Chasey,” the irritating voice of Izuki came, and you pursed your lips when you remembered how he bugged Eren last night. “Eren was doing it with someone last night. I heard all the noises when I walked to my room to grab my phone. If you walk in now, you’ll probably catch him in the act or at least walk into a room that smells of sweat and cum.”

“Who did he do it with? Did you see them?” Chase said, suddenly intrigued.

“I don’t know,” Izuki said. “It could be the girl he was talking to last night, but I don’t remember what she looked like.”

“Do you know what she was wearing?” 

“I don’t know, man! It was a dress, but she was wearing a jacket that covered it up! Why are you asking so many questions? Was she your date or some shit? Thought you had a boyfriend.”

Chase sighed and flipped the pancake. “I just thought he had broken an unspoken promise to me. I’ll snap his dick if he did break it though.”

“Just give me my pancakes so that I can leave,” Kiara interjected, and Chase groaned.

“Leave now. You don’t need your damn pancakes.”

“Bro, the only reason I’m sitting here is because Leon dragged me out of your room because I couldn’t walk. Cut me some slack and let me recharge with some pancakes.”

While Chase argued with the girl, you stepped your bare feet down the stairs. Each creak from the stairs sent you stopping in your tracks and covering your mouth, but they ignored any other noises that came from the stairs. You didn’t know why the hell you were hiding, but a small part in your mind chastised you for sleeping with Eren that festered and took over your mind. If someone caught you sneaking out, they’d question you and find out you slept with Eren, and you’d regress to the past you that you hated.

You reached the door and slipped through it before you could catch anyone’s attention, the people at the kitchen table busy arguing over pancakes to notice you. As you stood on the porch in nothing but a pair of shorts and an oversized shirt that you assumed belonged to Eren, the wooden porch digging into the pads of your feet, you cursed yourself for one, wearing stilettos the night before, and two, leaving said shoes in Eren’s room along with your clothes. You stepped onto the concrete path in front of you that led to the sidewalk in front of the dormitories and began your walk of shame home. Once you made it back to your dormitory after slipping past the dormitory supervisor and other people leaving the dorms to go about their normal Sunday mornings, you locked yourself in the bathroom and stared at your messy hair, red eyes, and hickeys peeking out from the shirt. 

Fuck, you really did it now.


	2. chills

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your eyes are showing   
> I'ma be yours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to publish this on January 1st as a Happy New Years! chapter and because it was a week after the first chapter, but i took too long😭 😭 😭 at least i didn't take over a month like i usually do 😄 anyways, this chapter has a lot of dialogue, but future chapters will be more balanced. enjoy~❤️

“Why did you run off Saturday?”

You let out an irritated sigh as the question reached your ears, and the notebook in your hand snapped shut. The last person you had wanted to see today just so happened to slide into the seat beside you and open their mouth. You had forgotten they shared this class with you. To avoid talking to them, you shoved your things into your bag and zipped it up, standing to move to another seat when their hand grabbed at your arm. You turned your attention towards them, and Eren released his grip when you glared at him, an apologetic look on his face. God, you wanted to turn his red snapback around and yank the brim down his eyes so that he’d stop looking at you like a kicked puppy. You wouldn’t fall for tricks like that any more.

“Sorry.” When you said nothing and only stared at him, keeping your eyes looking at his so that you wouldn’t stare at his tongue piercing and remember all that happened Saturday, he cleared his throat and flitted his eyes around your face for any sign of a reaction. “You suddenly disappeared Saturday morning. I was wondering why you left without saying anything.”

“Does it matter?” you asked, your words biting and filled with as much annoyance as you could. You didn’t need Eren in front of you to remind you of the decision you made that night. He was just another frat boy who’d sleep with anyone who so much as looked in their direction, and you didn’t need to get caught up in that. 

He blinked and fiddled with the cuffs of his red flannel shirt. He looked like a walking STOP sign that told you to stay away—something you had already planned on doing. “Uh… no. I guess it doesn’t,” he said, his words slow and just above a whisper. 

“Is that all? Then goodbye,” you said, walking over to a new seat. You didn’t care how rude you were being. Okay, maybe a little when his face fell and he nibbled on his bottom lip as he thought of what to do next, but you didn’t want him sticking around you, no matter how funny and irresistible he had been at the party. He had a plethora of girls and guys groveling at his feet; he didn’t need you to take the place of one of them as a fuck buddy.

“What happened to the girl from the party?” he said, and you sighed when you noticed he had stood up and sat back down next to your new spot. His comment irked a nerve inside you, and you whipped your head around to glare at him.

“I don’t know. Maybe, just  _ maybe _ , she had a lapse in judgement and made a mistake and is regretting it deeply.” He casted his eyes to the floor, and you felt a twinge in your heart. You pulled your things out of your bag and spread them across the table while you avoided his eyes. “Just… just leave me alone, please. Whatever you think happened between us on Saturday was a mistake, so just forget it even happened,” you said, softening your voice in hopes that he’d get the message and leave you alone.

“Oh, uhm… Yeah, that’s-that’s fine,” he managed after stuttering, and you looked up to see the cocky man from the party turning into a timid boy who looked ready to crawl into a hole. “I should have thought of a better way to talk to you, I guess.”

“What?” 

His eyes shot up to yours, and he pursed his lips. “I just thought that it was nice talking to you at the party, so I wanted to talk to you some more,” he said. “I swear it’s not for sex!” he added when you gave him an incredulous look. His foot tapped on the floor, pounding inside your ears and rattling around inside your brain, trying to disorient you and force you to make another mistake. “If you think it was a mistake, then I’ll treat it like one too, and we can act like nothing happened between us.”

You let out a sigh of relief and returned to opening up your notebook, happy that he’d ignore what happened even though it had been amazing for the both of you. Not that you’d ever tell him. He hummed, and you raised your eyebrows at him. He leaned forward in his seat, and you held your breath to keep the scent of his cologne from invading your nose and dulling your senses. 

“I know this is selfish of me, but I felt comfortable around you,” he said, and a dry chuckle left you, shocking him and making his eyebrows furrow. You sat the pencil in your hand down on your notebook and flipped your head to look at him with a fake smile on your face.

“Are you going to say I’m not like other girls? Because I can assure you that it’s not a compliment.” You rolled your eyes and scribbled in your notebook, watching as the lead created a thin gray line on the blue lined paper. Anything to keep your attention off of Eren. “You can very easily find someone else to talk with like how you talked with me.”

“Why do that when you’re here already?” 

You felt a pang in your heart, and you almost— _ almost _ —caved in. “Because I’m busy trying to pay attention in class,” you said, wishing he wouldn’t notice how his words stirred a desire inside you that you had pushed to the far corners of your mind. You didn’t need to get your hopes up for something you already knew the outcome of. Used and discarded, like always.

Eren’s face appeared in front of your eyes when he laid his upper body across the desk, and you looked at his hand hanging over the edge of the table, dangling in nothing as the silver rings wrapped around his fingers caught the white lights from above. A soft smirk came to his face, and you gulped, waiting for words to spill from his lips. The timid “mask” or whatever you wanted to call it seemed to be crumbling down already, and you didn’t want to get caught up in his joking words and smug smiles that sent butterflies slamming into your stomach walls. Hell, you only knew him from the party, and yet it seemed your body yearned for more of him.

“The professor isn’t here yet, though,” he said, and when you sighed in annoyance, his lip pulled back, revealing a sharp canine. 

“Screw off.”

His lips pouted. “Aw, are you cranky after riding out your coffee high and dealing with your caffeine hangover? Must be horrible. Maybe you shouldn’t drink five cans of coffee next time.”

You reached a hand out and grabbed his ear that his snapback pushed forward, holding the earlobe between your fingers, careful not to grab a hold of the earring in his lobe, and squeezed it while pulling down. He yelped in pain, and you released his ear when he shot back up in his seat. 

“If I wanted your advice, I would have asked for it,” you said, and he rubbed his reddening ear.

“Not very nice of you to do to a guy you just met a few days ago, is it?” he told you.

“It’s also not very nice to keep talking to someone who’s clearly not interested.”

Eren rested the side of his face on his fist as he looked at you with a cocky look on his face. “Oh, did you think I was flirting with you?” 

“God, I liked you better when you were acting like an abandoned puppy,” you said with a sigh.

“So you’re saying you like me?” Eren joked, and he held up his hands in defense when you glared at him. “Hey, no need to glare at me like that. I don’t blame you after how Saturday was.”

You bit your lip, your fingernails digging into your palm as you clenched your fits. “Is that what you’re trying to get at? I thought you didn’t want to sleep with me again, and you also agreed to call last time a mistake, but it seems I’m wrong. If you’re here to seduce me, kindly fuck off because I’m not interested in sex with you.”

He leaned back in his seat. “Well, that’s good because Eren Junior could use a break for a while, and I mean it this time.”

You rolled your eyes with a chuckle. “I thought I said not to call your dick ‘Junior’.”

The corner of his lips twitched when he heard your laugh, however dry it may have been. “You said not to call him ‘Junior’. You didn’t say anything about calling him  _ Eren _ Junior.”

“Just don’t call it ‘Junior anything’! Nothing with Junior before or after it or even Junior by itself,” you told him, and his jaw dropped as he faked offence.

“So you’re saying I can’t call him Eren Junior the Third either? Damn… And you act like you don’t have names for your tits.” He gave you the side eye and crossed his arms, a pout on his lips. “I see how it is. Nice double standard there, missy.” 

“I do not have names for my tits! I’m just saying it’s weird to call your dick ‘Junior’,” you said with a scoff.

“You read too much smut. I just  _ know _ you have a Wattpad account that you made when you were 12 that you’ve hidden away. I’ll find it one day, just you wait,” Eren said, and you slapped his arm.

“Shut up! You’re right, but don’t do it. Too many x Readers that I regret reading.”

Eren covered his mouth with a hand as his shoulders shook, and you glared at him, his smiling eyes making your embarrassment grow. “I was joking, but now that I know that I was right, I  _ really  _ want to know what kind of fanfictions you read when you were younger.” You shifted in your seat when he turned his eyes to your figure and rested the side of his face in his hand. “Care to share? I’ve actually been wanting to read more, mostly because Chase has been yelling at me to do so, but he didn’t specify what books to read.”

“I’m never telling you what stories I’ve read.”

“Fine, Miss Prissy. Keep all the good x Readers to yourself.” He crossed his arms again and stared ahead at the empty whiteboard.

“Oh, trust me. Stories written by random 12 year olds who learned about sex from reading smut are not the best. Save yourself the trouble and don’t read them.”

“But I will! I will read every single Harry Styles fanfiction in existence and then tell you in gritty detail what happens, especially the sex scenes,” he told you, to which you let out a cut-off laugh.

“What did I ever do to deserve that torture?’ you joked, and he smiled at you, a white, toothy smile that made your stomach do backflips and your heart pound. Damn, you had to be on your guard around Eren, or else you’d fall into his trap. 

“ _ You _ didn’t give me your number.” He rested his crossed arms on the table and leaned over towards you, your body instinctively leaning back away from him.

“Why? So you can hit me up with an unsolicited dick pic whenever you’re horny?” you said, quirking an eyebrow at him. 

“Never! I’m not that much of low-life scum as to harass someone with dick pics. What if I just want to send you random dog and cat videos I find? I try sending them to the other guys, and they always tell me to ‘Fuck off’ or ‘We’re in the middle of an argument’. Sorry I just try to lighten the mood with my third video of a cat falling off a chair trying to jump onto a table too far away.” Eren rolled his eyes playfully, and you covered your mouth with your hand as a giggle threatened to escape. “God, I swear those people just don’t like animals. I asked if we could get a house dog, but apparently it’s against the rules.”

“That’s too bad.”

“So… can I get your number?”

“That’s too bad,” you said again, and he looked at you with his eyebrows knitted together. “As much as I love cute animal videos, I don’t want to take the risk of you sending me a dick pic when you meant to send it to someone else.”

He sighed in defeat, his body slouching as he pulled away from you and leaned back in his seat. His head rolled backwards, and he peered at you from the corner of his eyes before flitting them back to the whiteboard. “Damn, I tried. I could have been your animal video dealer.” When you said nothing, tapping your pen on your notebook as you waited for the  _ very _ late psychology professor, he pulled out a piece of paper, slipping a pen out from his shirt pocket, and scribbled something down. Just as he slid it to you, the professor finally entered, apologizing for being late as they had a flat tire.

While the professor set up their station at the podium, you grabbed the paper Eren slid you, unfolded it, and scoffed. You gave him a ‘really, bitch?’ look, but he focused on the professor setting up their projector, only the small twitching of the corner of his lip telling you that he liked your reaction. You contemplated throwing the paper away, but you shoved it into your pants pocket instead and tore your attention away from Eren’s side profile to look at the professor. 

“Ooh, we love Freudian psychology. Fun, fun!” Eren said, his words dripping with sarcasm when a powerpoint lit up on the whiteboard, and you nudged him with your elbow. “What? The guy was super fucking weird with all the shit he said. The phallic stage of development? Feeling sexual attraction towards your parents when you’re a toddler? That’s some Alabama type shit there, and I am  _ not _ having it!” 

“Just pay attention. It will be in the midterm,” you said, and he sighed, slouching into his seat. 

“I know he’s called the father of psychology, but he must have been on a shit ton of drugs to come up with his ideas. I kinda wanna try some,” Eren said, and you rolled your eyes.

“Be quiet. I’m trying to pay attention.”

Eren slid down in his chair but said nothing else, and you thanked him in your mind for shutting up for once. As much as you’d  _ love _ him to keep pestering you with his playful words and cocky attitude, you needed to take notes to get a good grade on your midterm. Your scholarship depended on it. You shouldn’t have gone to that party Saturday because now, Eren seemed to have dug his claws into you, and he looked like he didn’t want to let go. Just what you needed.

**

The rest of your classes ended without much trouble, and Eren, to your surprise, didn’t hunt you down to attack you during your lunch period. Maybe he finally gave up on you, and you let out a sigh of relief, though a small pang in your chest contradicted it. Stupid heart getting attached to people too easily.

As you walked back to your dorm, you jumped when the door ripped open to reveal a disheveled person, their black, curly hair framing their dark face as their black eyes looked into your soul. Your best friend and roommate blinked at you a few times, and you nodded to them, just wanting to go inside and flop into bed, take a nap for a few hours, and then add the finishing touches to the history project due next week.

“Y/N…” Jayden blocked your path to enter, and you groaned, knowing they weren’t going to let you in by the way they wore their favorite oversized shirt and shorts. Guess you could say goodbye to your hopes of taking a nap.

“Where do you want to go for drinks?” you asked, knowing you’d get an earful about a breakup or something from Jayden. 

“The usual,” Jayden told you, already pulling on their sandals, and you waited for them to finish, checking your watch to see that it was 5:03 p.m. 

“Chicken and beer? It’s getting close to dinner time.” 

They nodded and closed the door, and you linked your hand with theirs, squeezing it to give them a sense of feeling as you pulled them to a Korean restaurant nearby that sold beer and chicken for the two of you to indulge in. Jayden followed along, quiet, their feet stumbling along behind them, and you pursed your lips, knowing whatever happened wouldn’t be good. 

The familiar sign appeared, and you wasted no time in pulling them inside, securing a seat and ordering food for the both of you after showing the waitress your IDs while Jayden sat there in silence, their hands in their lap as they looked at the menu stand in the middle of the table. You grabbed it and moved it off to the side, and their eyes traveled up to yours, tears brimming in the corners of them, and your heart dropped.

“What happened, Jayden?” you asked, your tone as light and careful as possible.

Their bottom lip trembled as they fiddled with their hands, and you reached out a hand for them to place their hand in, and once they did, you rubbed soft circles around the back of their hand with your thumb. Jayden’s jaw shook as they opened their mouth to speak, and you held your breath. “I-I know that I’m not the best person. I make mistakes. I fuck up a lot. I don’t take some things seriously. But do my parents have to constantly remind me of those facts? I just want to let loose here and do what I want, but they won’t fucking leave me alone!”

You thanked the waitress when she brought your beer and chicken, and Jayden grabbed the pint to chug it. You grabbed at their hands to stop them from drinking too much, and they pulled the glass away to reveal a frothy moustache. Though you’d normally laugh in another situation, the crestfallen look on their face made you just glance at them with a sympathetic look. 

“They’ve always been overbearing. I thought I’d get a chance to be myself and be free here, but do you know what they told me?” Jayden said, and you shook your head, but knowing their parents, you knew it would only be something that worsened Jayden’s mental health. “They told me if I had left my phase and was back to being their ‘baby girl’. I  _ told _ them, hundreds of times, that this isn’t a phase! Why can’t they just understand, huh? They didn’t care about my being pansexual, but they care now that I don’t want to be a ‘she’? Fuck off and let me live my fucking life. God!” They chugged the rest of their beer before you could stop them, and they rang the bell to ask for more, the waitress scurrying over. “I ask for the bare fucking minimum, and they can’t even fucking give me that? Acceptance? Is that so fucking hard to give me? Who was it that paid for my mother’s medical bills when she underwent chemo? Huh? Me! I busted my ass at a job that overworked me for enough money, and they never thanked me for that. The least they could do is thank me for that and accept me! None of this ‘We’ve done so much for you’ bullshit they like spouting. I’ve done over half the shit they have, so just let me be!”

You watched as the tears that sparkled in their eyes tumbled out and spilled down their cheeks in trails of glistening water, representing all their pent up frustrations and pain that you wish you could take away from them. As you didn’t fully understand their struggle, all you could offer was your presence and maybe a few words, but you didn’t know what to say. You opened your mouth to speak, but the waitress returned with Jayden’s refilled beer, and after taking it from her, Jayden glugged half of it and slammed it down on the table.

“Enough about this depressing shit. Tell me about you. I haven’t seen you since Saturday, and you’ve been walking with a slight limp. What happened at the party?” Jayden tried wiggling their eyebrows, but their red eyes held your attention, and your ears picked up the thickness in their voice from crying. You wanted to tell them not to change the subject, but they clicked their tongue when you opened your mouth. “No, we are not talking about that shit. I let it out, so let’s leave it at that.” They wiped their tears and leaned in towards you. “So? Details please!”

Though it didn’t sit well with you to move on after their emotional rant, you didn’t want them dwelling too much on those thoughts. “What do you want to know?”

Jayden rolled their red eyes. “I literally just said you had a limp. So tell me which guy dicked you down so well.” When you readied yourself to speak, they interjected. “Wait! Let me guess.” They hummed and tapped their chin. “D’Marcus? He might not look it, but he’s actually pretty freaky in bed. Gets super submissive though, so probably not him. Hmm… Izuki is  _ not _ your type and too whiny. Likes getting pegged too; definitely not for you. Chase doesn’t swing that way, sadly. He has a big dick and knows how to take care of people. Troy wasn’t there and neither was Michael. Pity, they’re good. Eli doesn’t like fucking without feelings. Same with Lucas. Was it someone else that wasn’t the main frat boys? Nah, the others all suck, especially when they’re drunk. Then was it-”

The door to the restaurant opened, loud voices echoing as they entered, and Jayden stopped talking as the both of you looked towards the obnoxious newcomers. You tensed when you saw Eren at the front, Chase behind him as he corralled everyone inside and tried to quiet them down. Eren’s eyes flitted around the store to look for an empty seat, and his eyes lit up when he spotted you and Jayden. Chase yelled at him when he pulled away from the group, but he stopped as his eyes caught sight of you and Jayden. Before you knew it, your table became surrounded by a group of frat boys. You nodded to D’Marcus and Chase, but Eren just slid into the seat beside you without a word.

“Wow, thanks for interrupting our nice date, white boy,” Jayden said, and Eren chuckled as he spread his legs, his knee tapping against yours and making you jump. Goosebumps sprung up on your skin, and your heart sped up.

“Hey, beer and chicken is better with more people,” Eren replied as the other guys slid up a table, Izuki ordering, though Chase slapped him and said he was too young to drink and ordered alcohol for the people old enough to drink after showing their IDs. 

“We couldn’t think of anywhere else to eat, and knowing that you were here, Jay bird, makes it even better. Minsung wanted to come here, but he got held up and couldn’t come,” Izuki said, and Jayden sighed, all traces of their past emotional state disappearing.

“First off, don’t fucking call me ‘Jay bird’, second off, I couldn’t care less about Minsung after the shit he pulled, and third off, I’m not going to peg you, so stop trying,” Jayden said, and the boys held in their laughter as Izuki turned red, his mouth opening and closing like a fish.

“I-I wasn’t aiming for that!” he stuttered, ears ablaze as everyone laughed. 

“Yeah, yeah. Drink your apple juice, freshie.”

“What?! You got me  _ apple juice _ , Chase? I’m not five!” Izuki said, and Chase flicked him in the forehead.

“You don’t get to drink with the rest of us until you’re a few years older. Eren, don’t you fucking dare give him anything,” Chase said, glaring at Eren, who held his hands up in mock surrender. 

“Don’t come for me! I wasn’t even thinking of doing it in the first place.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He’s probably going to try to flirt with the girl,” a man said, and Jayden’s eyes turned to slits as they stared at Eren.

“What Eli said better not be true, E-boy. Only I can have Y/N!” Jayden said, sticking their middle finger up towards him.

“Possessive, aren’t we?” Eren said, leaning forward to wrap his fingers around Jayden’s, moving them up and down.

“You disgust me,” Jayden said.

“Thank you. It’s one of my many charms,” he said with a smile as he sat back in his seat, his shoulder bumping against yours. You shrunk in on yourself when his clothing scraped against yours, tightening both your hands around your pint of beer as you brought it up to your lips for a sip.

“So what were the two of you doing on your date before we interrupted?” Eli asked, his blue eyes twinkling as he leaned forward, eager for gossip. 

Jayden smirked and sipped from their beer. “Well, Y/N here has been walking with a limp, so I was wondering who gave her the good pipe during the party. Was it one of you guys?”

You choked on your beer, and Eren rubbed your back. “What the fuck, Jayden? If you had let me explain, I would have told you that I slipped and fell on my ass. I didn’t do anything at the part except drink and talk,” you said, lying straight through your teeth. You hated lying to Jayden, but if they knew the truth, they’d rip you  _ and _ Eren a new one, though you didn’t know what Eren would have done to deserve it. Jayden and Chase seemed to have something against him sleeping with you, and you didn’t want to do something wrong by telling them that their wishes didn’t come true. 

“Are you cheating on Jayden, Y/N?” Izuki asked, jokingly, and you glared at him. “I was just kidding. I use the falling on my ass excuse all the time too.”

“It’s not an excuse. Plus, it’s none of your business anyways,” you said, steadfast in never revealing the truth, even though the culprit sat next to you, their arm resting on the back of your chair. 

“Well, even if she didn’t have any fun time at the party, Eren sure did!” Izuki said, and you held your breath. Eren’s arm tensed behind you, his limp hand curling into a fist. 

“Huh? Thought you said you weren’t gonna do anything for a while to give your little guy a rest,” Jayden said, resting their elbows on the table and intertwining their fingers. You really wanted to be anywhere but there when all their attention focused on Eren, your figure right next to his. 

“Izuki might have just heard porn or something,” Eren tried deflecting, but no one seemed to buy it.

“I wouldn’t mistake that! It was super loud. I could hear it through the wall when I went to my room.” Izuki drank some of his juice, looking at it with angry eyes, but they softened when he looked at everyone else. “Anyways, Eren got  _ super _ lucky! The girl sounded really hot. Like… she wasn’t the annoying, fake whiny you get from porn. She kept letting out high pitched moans as if she was really feeling good. And when she called out things like ‘Right there!’ or ‘Just like that!’, it was-” he made an explosion sound effect. “I woulda busted right there.”

You looked at your lap as his words went through your ears. All you wanted to do now was go home and take a shower to forget the things he said about your moans. You felt dirty, disgusting, like you did something wrong. Eren’s hand around your back went down to your thigh, squeezing it as the muscles in his jaw tensed. Everyone stared at Izuki with strange looks.

“Okay, okay! Not while we’re eating! God, I swear you have no sense of when to  _ not _ open your damn mouth,” Eren said, and Izuki stuck his tongue out at him. You let out a shaky breath, your tense body relaxing. Chase and Jayden’s eyes lingered on you for a bit, but you paid it no mind as you tried to pay attention to other conversations to ignore the previous statement made by Izuki.

You grabbed a piece of chicken and nibbled on it, your appetite gone thanks to Izuki. Eren noticed and leaned in to your ear while the others started talking about a class they all took. 

“Are you okay? You look a little pale,” he said, and you nodded slightly, not convincing at all.

“I… I think I’m gonna just head home,” you said, hoping Jayden would be able to feel better around the guys. You couldn’t handle being in the room for another minute. Eren nodded and retracted his hand.

“I’ll walk you there,” he said. When you looked at him, startled, he smiled. “I’m your rapist repellant, right? I didn’t get to do my job after the party, but I can do it now.”

You didn’t have the energy to argue with him and just sighed in defeat. “If you want to.” 

Without another word, you stood up, saying you’d be heading home, Eren saying he’d walk you right after, and everyone nodded, not batting an eye. You zipped up your jacket to keep the cold air from nipping at you as you left the restaurant, Eren right behind you. While you walked, you snuggled into your jacket, and he walked beside you.

“I’m sorry for Izuki. I should have stopped him when he opened his mouth. You looked really uncomfortable,” Eren said, and you let out a breath through your nose.

“Well, I was, but it wasn’t your fault. It was just an unfortunate coincidence that he just so happened to be talking about me,” you told him, and he shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Still, it shouldn’t have happened. I didn’t mean to put you in an uncomfortable position like this because we slept together. Now Chase and Jayden will both be after my ass if they find out.”

You chuckled as you imagined Jayden running after him with a flip flop with Chase trying to tackle him. “I mean, I think it would be funny to watch, but then Jayden would attack me, so I think it’s for my best that we keep it a secret.”

“What, you want to see me get beat up? That’s not very nice of you to think towards someone you barely know,” he said, and you scoffed at him.

“Says the one who fucked someone they barely knew,” you retorted.

“Hey, while it was my first time talking to you, I know quite a bit about you, Miss Full-Ride Scholarship. People talk about you a lot. Not in a bad way,” he added when you looked at him out of worry. “The teachers praise you, and students want to be you. They say you work hard and have the best grades out of your department.”

“We only share two classes,” you said.

“Oh, right! I forgot we share statistics. Now, you must know a bit about me too, so I’d say it’s unfair to say we don’t know each other. We just haven’t had the chance to talk until the party,” Eren said.

“I know you’re a playboy that would fuck anything that walks on two legs. And cocky as fuck, which I can now confirm is true. Would it kill you to turn the cockiness down a bit? You start getting semi emotional or caring and instantly revert back to your cocky attitude when given leeway,” you told him, and he chuckled.

“True. Being sentimental is hard, man. Emotions are too messy. But-” he said when you tried to say something. “Would it be too hard for you to not try to block me off when I try to talk to you? You keep saying things to me, but your body language keeps contradicting your words. Don’t be such a tsundere, baby girl,” he said, and you crossed your arms.

“I am not!” 

“Then why do you keep leaning towards me? Are you cold? Want me to warm you up? Or do you just want to be close to me? I don’t mind. Come as close as you’d like.” He opened his arms up for you, and you rolled your eyes at him, pushing him in the chest. You walked away from him and left him rushing to catch up to you. “Aw, don’t be mad. I only do this for you.”

“Again, we barely know each other,” you said.

“Then why don’t we get to know each other? I told you already—I feel comfortable around you and want to talk with you more. If you wouldn’t try to put up a front, maybe we could have a real conversation, like at the party. I don’t know why you’re putting it up now, but I’ll say this now. I am not trying to trick you into sleeping with me. You’ve expressed how you don’t want to talk about that time, so we’ll leave it at that. Let’s act like it didn’t happen and start over, okay?” he said, and you hummed. 

“All right. I guess I could give you a chance, frat boy,” you told him.

“I’m Eren. You?” he asked, and he extended a hand for you. You chuckled and rolled your eyes at him.

“Y/N,” you responded, giving him your hand to shake after a few moments. 

“May I have your number?”

You retracted your hand and started off towards your dorm, the building a few hundred meters away. “Well, it was fun meeting you. Bye!” You waved at him, and he caught up to you. “Curse you and your long legs.”

“I was only kidding about before. I’ll just keep annoying you in psych class and maybe statistics too,” he said as he walked backwards in front of you. You half wanted him to trip and fall in front of you.

“God, I’ll have to give you a new nickname.”

“What? Sexy? Irresistible? Papi chulo?”

“Gnat.”

“Huh? My name’s not Natalie though?” he said, and you sighed.

“Gnat, as in the annoying bugs that won’t leave you alone. Fits you pretty well,” you told him, hurrying your steps as the front doors to the dorm became closer.

“Cute. Can I call you mine?” he joked, and you instinctively turned around and karate chopped him in the side. He groaned and bent over in pain.

“Sorry, a reflex whenever I hear cringey lines.” He straightened himself, and you looked at him in concern when his eyes looked pained. “I didn’t hit you too hard, did I?”

“Yes, you did,” he said, and you stepped closer to him to check on him. When you stood in front of him, he lifted his head and pressed a finger to his puckered lips. “Only a kiss can make me feel better.” 

“Thank you very much for your hard work, rapist repellant. You are hereby relieved of your duties for the foreseeable future,” you told him turned away from him and made it to the dorm doors. 

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding! I won’t joke like that again.”

“Promise?” you said, whipping around to hold your pinky up to him.

He scratched the back of his head and looked off to the side. “Eh… Can’t make any promises about that, buttercup. Kinda like seeing you roll your eyes at me. It’s sexy,” he said, leaning in to you. 

Your mind yelled at you to move, but your body remained still as his face came closer and closer to you, his larger body towering over you. “You’re weird,” you managed out, proud of yourself for not stuttering as his green eyes peered into yours, glinting with an emotion you couldn’t make out, and he smiled at you. 

Eren plucked a loose leaf out of your hair, his eyes looking deep into your soul and making your body quake. He threw the leaf on the ground and reached his hand up to pat your head and ruffle your hair. You leaned into the warmth of his hand, and his eyes softened as he watched you. The warmth disappeared when he retracted his hand, and you almost grabbed his hand back to place it on your head, but your rational brain stopped you. He shoved his hands back into his pockets and stepped away from you without a word. You clenched a fist around your heart, the fabric of your jacket crinkling in your hand, and he suddenly turned around.

“I’m hoping you’ll text me soon,” he called out to you before he turned back around and left with a wave over his shoulder. You stood there, watching his wide back disappear, eyes wide and heart pounding. You couldn’t forget the way he looked at you, as if you were the only person at that moment that existed in the whole world, and you hated how you liked it, how it made you want to run into your dorm room and text him right away.

God, you should have never accepted that slip of paper.


	3. не киряй

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tears will stream  
> Take them all, pillow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you all for the support,💕 and i hope you enjoy this chapter,😘 though the ending might be weak as i was getting sleepy💔  
> anyways, you all are giving me the inspiration to actually write, so chapters will hopefully be up every friday at random times, aka whenever i finish writing them and have time to publish them

You stared from the safe confines of your bed at your phone sitting on a desk chair, the lighting of the room glinting off the black screen as the piece of paper with Eren’s phone number laid beside it and begged for you to put it into your contacts. A small part of your brain told you not to do it, to resist all temptations to text him, because it had only been a few days since you had received it, but another part of you wanted to hear his annoying comments that sent your eyes rolling into the back of your head. Though he had told you he’d bother you in statistics and psychology, other classmates had held him up and made it impossible for him to break away and talk to you, leaving your normally quiet days even quieter and missing something.

A nagging feeling nipped at your chest, and you wanted it to disappear; the only problem was that the way to get rid of it was to text Eren. You didn’t know what to text him, though, and you knew you’d look like a bumbling idiot if you did text him now. Your fingers itched to snatch your phone and type in his number, your tense digits digging into your comforter in an effort to hold back. In the silence of the room, the sound of your breathing echoed in your ears and added to the pressure already pressing down onto you. You wouldn’t cave though.

Your phone screen suddenly lit up, and you jumped up to snatch it, wondering if maybe, just  _ maybe _ , Jayden had given Eren your phone number and he had decided to text you first, but your hope shattered when you saw a text from a group chat you had been forced into where all the people did was ask each other for homework answers. You clicked your tongue in annoyance, switching your phone off and going to set it back onto the chair, but you noticed something missing. Something white with a bunch of scribbles on it that had been begging for your attention only seconds before. 

Panic set in, your eyes widening and heart pounding, and you dropped to your knees to crawl around in search for the slip of paper you had been contemplating throwing away for the past few days. As much as you told yourself to get rid of it, a way too large part of you wanted to keep it. The soft carpet rubbed against your hands, seeping into the spaces between your fingers, and you gripped it when you couldn’t find the slip of paper under your desk. The rational side of you thanked all the gods in existence for the missing piece of paper because it meant you wouldn’t make a bad decision, but you couldn’t help the pang in your heart when you realized it was gone, as if a random fairy stole it to give to a nest of baby birds. 

You decided to leave it be and just play random games on your phone, all your work finished for the next few days, but a small speck of white peeking out from the edge of Jayden’s bed caught your eyes, and you dove for it, your knees singing in pain when you collided with the floor and gave yourself rug burn. The small digits written in Eren’s quick handwriting greeted you when you flipped the paper over, and you clutched it to your chest with a sigh of relief. It was then that you realized it was now or never. You were going to text him, or you were going to lock yourself in the bathroom and never come out. 

You wasted no time in plugging his number into your phone, running over it several times in your mind to make sure you put it in correctly, and when the messaging screen popped up, you threw your phone onto your bed out of reflex. Talking to people triggered your fight or flight senses, whether that be over text or in person.

“Come one, Y/N! You can do it! It’s just a little text. He totally won’t think you’re a fucking weirdo who can’t talk unless it’s slinging insults. No, no, no! Nothing could  _ ever _ go wrong! Hahaha! Just text him, you stupid bitch!” you cursed at yourself, pacing around in front of your bed and beating your fist against the side of your head. 

You clambered onto your bed, grabbed your phone, and laid on your back, your eyes taking in the blank white screen with Eren’s number at the top that pleaded for you to text him. You took a deep sigh, heart pounding in your ears and breath shaking. Your thumbs glided over the keyboard as you type in a message:  **Hey, this is Y/N.** You deleted it and tried again.

**It’s Y/N.**

No.

**Y/N here.**

Hell no.

You sighed and rested your phone on your stomach. Just how many ways were you going to try to reword the same sentence? After a few minutes of contemplation, you picked your phone back up and typed in a message, hitting send before you could regret it.

**Send cat videos ~ Y/N.**

Once the message popped up, you jumped out of your bed and threw your phone back onto it, not wanting to see what he’d respond with. You paced around your room as you waited for the notification sound, wondering if you sounded stupid in the text, and it didn’t take long before a ping sounded and sent you plunging towards your phone to snatch it up. A small sliver of hope sparked in you that maybe Eren had responded, though the rest of you was wary. And you were right to be wary.

Jayden had just texted you to say that they’d be out the whole day. 

You sighed and dropped your forehead against your mattress, but another ping sounded, and you shot your head up to look at the notification. It was Eren’s number. You jumped up, holding your breath, as your heart threatened to burst out of your ribcage and opened his message. A video with a small message attached beneath it. 

**hope you enjoy~** he texted beneath a video of a baby kitten trying to walk while its hind legs kept slipping on the ground. 

You awed as you watched it for the fifth time since he sent it and texted back.  **Thanks.**

Your phone screen turned black as you clicked it off, ready to take out your laptop and watch anime to relax, but the screen lit back up with another text from Eren. 

**you weren’t thinking of ending the conversation there, were you?**

Your eyebrows furrowed at his message, and your thumbs moved to type your reply.

**What do you mean?** you texted, and you watched as the three dots bounced at the bottom of the screen.

🙄 **you finally text me after three days of nothing, but you don’t even want to chat? sad.** 💔 

You rolled your eyes at his reply, knowing he was smirking behind his screen as he awaited your reply.

**You’re interrupting my anime bingeing session.**

**how sad. anyways, have any real plans? if not, wanna see a movie with me? 🤩**

**First off, anime bingeing** is **real plans, and second off, why should I?**

**okay, okay🙄 you can simp over your 2D boys if you want, OR you could spend some time with me and see a movie that no one else wants to see with me😏 not a tough choice if you ask me. 🚶♂️**

**You’re right. I choose to simp for my 2D boys, thanks. 😘**

**hey! help a guy out here. i asked so many people, but they all said no😔💔**

**Not my problem, sorry!**

**please? it’s a reshowing of 10 things i hate about you, and NO ONE wants to watch it with me😭 can’t a guy enjoy a rom-com with his buds without them saying they wouldn’t be caught dead watching it with another guy?**

Your heart dropped as your eyes skimmed over the title of the movie, “10 Things I Hate About You”. Bile rose in your throat as memories flashed in your mind of loud laughter, scattered popcorn, and blankets barely covering two bodies as they tangled with each other. You couldn’t rewatch the movie. Ever.

**Sorry. I don’t like the movie. Maybe someone else would be fine with it?**

**oh💔 i didn’t mean to annoy you like that. if i’d known you didn’t like it, i wouldn’t have troubled you by asking you.**

Shit, now he was going to end the conversation. Truth be told, you wanted to keep talking to him, but you couldn’t— _ wouldn’t— _ watch that movie, even if you were paid to do so. Unless he wanted you to break down into tears next to him for no reason, it would be best for you to stay home. But as you kept rereading his message where he said he was annoying you, you bit your lip and swallowed down the bile with a shaky gulp. 

Maybe you had moved on. It had been over a year since it happened, so it was possible that you were better. Possibly.

God, you could already imagine Eren’s face falling and reverting back to his kicked puppy look, and your stupid heart clenched. You didn’t want him to feel reluctant to talk to you in the future out of fear of annoying you, so you lifted a shaky thumb above your keyboard, shallow breaths pushing past your lips. With slow, trembling movements, you typed out a message for Eren.

**Actually, I’d like to watch it with you.**

Your phone screen lit up with a call from Eren, and you tensed as you instinctively hung up on him, your text messages popping back up on your screen. 

**Why would you suddenly call me?!**

**i wanted to hear your voice to see if you were lying to me. pick up.**

He called again, your phone ringing as it waited for you to answer his call. Your thumb hesitated to accept it, but after you took a deep breath, you hit it and placed your phone next to your ear.

“What?” you said, and Eren chuckled, the static from the phone mixing with his deep voice and sending shivers down your spine as it tickled your ear.

“I haven’t heard your voice in a few days and  _ that’s _ the first thing you say to me? I’m hurt, babe,” he said, and you rolled your eyes. At this rate, your eyes would fall out.

“You could have just texted me. Why the sudden call? Do you really not believe me when I say I’ll watch the movie with you?” you asked him, and you wrapped an arm around yourself in a comforting hug as silence met you. Eren didn’t say anything for a few moments, and you let out a sigh, ready to end the call, when he hummed and startled you.

“You said you didn’t like the movie, but now you want to watch it with me? It was a little fishy, if I’m being honest. Guess my charms are just that good to persuade you into joining me,” he joked, and if he were in front of you, you’d slap him on the shoulder.

“Keep dreaming, gnat,” you told him.

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Anyways, you’re not forcing yourself to join me, right? I don’t wanna drag you around with me if you don’t want me to.”  
You walked around your room as he spoke, and you clicked your tongue in thought as he asked his question. “I need to unwind, and a movie would help, I guess.” Your eyes moved to stare at the calendar hanging above your desk, and your eyebrows furrowed. “Wait, you do know what day it is, right?”

“Yeah, it’s Thursday,” Eren said, and you sighed.

“And you know what that means?” you asked, hoping he’d understand where you’re getting at.

“We’re watching a movie on a Thursday night.”

“No! It means there’s still classes tomorrow. What time is the movie even at? I have a curfew to abide by,” you said, shivers wracking your whole body when you remembered how the dormitory advisor yelled at a girl for being late a minute past curfew in front of the whole dorm. You did  _ not _ want to be in that girl’s shoes and be embarrassed in front of everyone.

“It’s just at 8, little miss goodie two-shoes. I wouldn’t drag you out until late into the night and make you get in trouble,” he responded, and you scoffed.

“How am I supposed to know that? Remember, only our fourth time talking.”

He sighed over the phone, you pursed your lips to hide a smile, even though he’d never see it anyways.

“Are you coming or not?”

“Fine, I have nothing else to do besides watch anime anyways. Be happy I’m choosing you over Dazai,” you said, and Eren chuckled, the sound echoing in your ears and making your face flush. Even with the phone distorting his voice, you could imagine it clearly in your mind, and it didn’t help keep your heart calm. 

“I’m honored. Just come over to the frat house at around 7:30. Then we can walk to the theatre together,” he said, and you made a confused noise.

“We have a theatre nearby?” 

Eren was silent on the other side for a few moments before he stuttered out a reply. “You-you didn’t know we had a theatre? Just how much of a shut-in are you?”

“Ooh, Dazai’s looking really sexy right now. Sorry, might have to cancel our plans, xoxo!” You pulled the phone away from your ear, your thumb hovering over the end call button, when his voice rang out.

“Okay! I’m joking! Don’t abandon me. I won’t comment on your antisocial tendencies anymore. I swear on Chase’s left ass cheek.”

“What the fuck are you saying?!” you heard Chase yell, and Eren grunted, the sound of something hitting him echoing in your ear.

“Why’d you throw a pillow at me?! What the hell did I do?” Eren yelled back, and Chase grumbled.

“Stop saying weird shit and hurry up. It’s your turn for dinner,” Chase said, and Eren sighed.

“I’m constantly abused here…” he mumbled. “So is it a deal, miss goodie goodie? Still going to the movie with me?” he asked you, and you hummed.

“I guess. Better hurry up and get off the phone though before Chase castrates you,” you replied, and Eren yelled something incoherent at Chase, who yelled back in even more incoherent words.

“Good. I’ll be waiting for you to come,” Eren said, and you didn’t get anything else out before the call shut off with a sudden startled cry from his side. Well, it looked like you’d have to wait until 7:30 to see or hear from him again. 

You let out a deep breath and tossed your phone onto your bed, deciding it was time for you to get dressed and use the restroom. Though there was still over 2 hours until you had to meet him, you wanted to get ready now, your heart pounding in anticipation and excitement thrumming in your veins and urging you to run over to him now. As you slipped into the bathroom and went about your business, your eyes widened, and your heart dropped into your stomach. Of course, of all days, your period chose to rear its ugly red head  _ now _ . No wonder you had been experiencing sharp pain in your lower stomach for the past few weeks. 

Your mind had originally planned out a cute outfit for you to wear, but now knowing that Aunt Flo decided to drop in for a sudden visit, your motivation and desire to dress up depleted and left you wanting to throw on random sweats and an oversized sweater. You groaned in irritation as you inserted the tampon and finished up. When you exited your restroom, you went into your closet and pulled out a pair of black leggings to slip on. As you perused your hoodie collection, your eyes stopped on a purple hoodie shoved into the back of your closet. 

Tears sprung up in your eyes, and you blamed your period for throwing your hormones out of whack and bringing back memories you had tried to push down. A shaky hand reached out and grabbed at the hoodie, fingers clenching into the fabric to pull it out of the dark confines of the closet, moth balls falling off of it. The hoodie was nothing special—just a solid purple hoodie with a few holes in it from constant wear and loose lint sticking to it. You rubbed the hoodie between your fingers as your lips trembled, and your mind begged you to put it back. 

Images of late nights spent over at  _ his _ house, clothes strewn on the floor, sweat dripping down your bodies as breathy moans filled the air flashed in your mind. The more you ran your fingers over the fabric, more memories of stolen kisses, late night TV bingeing sessions, and food fights popped up. God, if Jayden saw you now, they’d strangle you for not throwing the hoodie out. You had contemplated throwing it in the trash, but everytime, it had felt like a hand grasped your heart and squeezed it as tight as possible, and you had kept the hoodie. 

You shouldn’t. You knew you shouldn’t, but your heart begged you to wear it, even though your mind told you not to. The last thing you needed was to wear the hoodie, go to the movies with Eren, and break down in tears in front of him as memories of your ex assaulted you. Fuck, your hormones were too fucked up to think correctly.

Shaky hands brought the hoodie up to your nose, and you took a deep inhale, the faded scent of cologne hitting your nose. In a daze, you stripped out of your clothes and slipped the hoodie on, watching as it reached mid thigh on you. You hated the way you felt calm in the hoodie and how the faded purple color reminded you of how much it had gone through. Your fingers twitched at the end of the hoodie as they readied themselves to yank it off, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do it. As you pulled on the leggings, you cursed yourself for having not moved on. It had been a  _ year _ , for fuck’s sake, and yet you kept clinging onto the stupidest of memories. 

Instead of listening to the argument between your heart and mind, you plopped down onto your bed, fatigue weighing your body down suddenly. Though you’d normally eat around this time, your appetite disappeared and only left behind a feeling of wanting to do nothing. You turned on a timer for a couple hours and closed your eyes, hoping the memories would leave you alone. You pressed the palms of your hands into your eyes and took deep breaths. Before you knew it, you fell into a light slumber.

\---

The ringing of your phone’s alarm startled you awake, and you jumped out of your bed, stumbling to the floor and groaning in pain as you grabbed at your phone to shut off the loud alarm. You flicked the phone on to check the time and jumped up when you realized you only had ten minutes to rush over to Eren before you were late. While hurrying to the front door, you yanked on a pair of vans with your phone in hand, grabbed your wallet and dorm key, and smoothed out your bedhead before you dashed down the hall towards the staircase—the elevator would take too long. As you jumped down the stairs, you cursed yourself and your weak lungs as your breathing came out in shallow bursts that burned your lungs, but you did your best to ignore it as you made it through the entrance of the dorm building and booked it towards the frat house before it was too late. 

A few people gave you strange looks as you ran, and they probably thought you were desperate for a chance to lay in bed with the frat boys once they realized where you were headed, but you only cared about not being late. The familiar walkway you hadn’t seen for a few days came up in front of you, and you slowed your pace to check your phone. 7:28. You had a few minutes to catch your breath. When you walked down the path to the porch, memories of the party came back, and you brushed them off before they could fester and overtake your rational thoughts. The last thing you needed was getting all hot and heavy because your period decided to throw your hormones for a loop and remind you of the very,  _ very _ nice night you had with Eren. 

You let out deep breaths, hoping to calm your heavy panting before Eren came out and saw you breathing like a dog stuck under the desert sun. A cramp stabbed you in the lower stomach, and you bent over while holding the spot to try to ignore the pain, but the sound of a shutting door shot you back up right. Your jaw clenched in pain, but you tried to flash Eren a smile as he walked over to you in skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a leather jacket, his haired tied in a half updo that begged you to run your fingers through the half that flowed down the back of his neck. He held his phone in his hand, appearing to type something. 

“Hi,” you breathed out, chest still heaving, and he looked up at you with a quirked eyebrow.

“Are you all right there? You look out of breath?” he asked, and you let out an awkward chuckle. “Am I that sexy that I stole your breath away, babe?”

You took a deep breath and released it as a sigh, not surprised by his sudden flirting right off the bat. “No, sorry. I don’t like my men looking like bikers.” A lie. He looked  _ way  _ too good in a leather jacket, and you wanted to see it off of him. Fuck, your period was making you too horny. “I just ran from my dorm. Needed the exercise.”

Eren walked up to you, and you craned your neck to peer up to see his lips pulling back into a smirk. “Are you sure you just weren’t excited to see me? Didn’t know you had the hots for me  _ that _ badly!”

Your eyes rolled into the back of your head, and you hit him with a sweater paw. “No! I almost overslept after taking a nap.”

“Oh? I thought you were going to watch anime and see the love of your life, Dazai, before meeting up with your side guy, me. Guess I’m more important,” he said as he leaned in towards you, only for you to press your pointer finger to his forehead and move his head backwards.

“You wish. Now let’s head to the movie before I pass out from overexertion and need you to carry me,” you said as you shoved your belongings into your hoodie pocket and kept your hands there for warmth, walking ahead of Eren.

“I’d hate to break it to you, but the theatre’s in the  _ other _ direction,” he called out to you when you made it halfway across the yard, and you whipped around to speed walk back up to him.

“I knew that,” you said, brushing your hair out of your face as he hid his mouth behind a fist to cover his laughter. 

“Yeah, sure you did.” Eren held out a hand and looked at you with sympathetic eyes. “Do you want to hold my hand so you don’t get lost?”

You brushed his hand out of your face and sucked your teeth. With a tsk, you turned towards your dorm building. “You know, my dorm is looking  _ really _ sexy right now. Might just cancel our plans. See ya!” You took a step forward, and his hand reached out to grab your hoodie.

“I’m kidding!” he said as he pulled you back and released your hoodie. “Don’t leave me now when you’ve had to exercise for me. I’d feel horrible for your poor stamina.” 

Your hoodie bunched up as you crossed your arms and fixed him with a bored look. “Then let’s go before we miss the movie.”

“Would be my pleasure, milady,” he said with a bow, and you faked a gag, holding up a hand as you turned away from him.

“Don’t—eugh!—say that  _ ever _ again. I don’t need you talking like a neckbeard,” you told him, and he sighed and nudged you with his shoulder.

“Why? Have you had bad experiences with them in the past?” 

“No, it’s just weird.”

“Fair enough.” Without another word, he started forward, leaving you to scramble to catch up to his long legs.

As you walked beside him, you noticed the many rings in his ear and a bar earring through his upper ear cartilage. “Did you always have that many piercings?” you asked, and he hummed.

“Yeah, but I don’t always wear them,” he responded. He pushed you slightly with his body, and you pushed him back. “I’m glad you’re paying that much attention to me.”

“It would have been so much better if you didn’t say that.”

Eren chuckled and looked at you, flashing a crooked smile. “Do you hate my honesty? I’d like to think it’s one of my greater charms.”

“Can it, frat boy.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The two of you walked in a comfortable silence as you looked around and took in the surrounding area, realizing just how much you  _ haven’t  _ seen since you’ve been busy shoving your nose in a book or studying for the past 3 years. Jayden had offered to take you downtown before, but you always denied them and opted to stay inside the safe confines of your dorm. Now, seeing all that the downtown area had to offer felt like a new world opening up to you. Your eyes twinkled like a little kid in a candy store as you looked at all the new food places and clothes stores, even a bookstore that you hoped sold the manga you had been desperately wanting to read for a while now. Eren smiled at your childish excitement, a soft chuckle leaving him as you spun around in place to get a full view of everything.

“You’d see a lot more if you didn’t stay cooped up in your dorm all the time,” he said, and you stopped in place.

“Wow, thanks for calling me a shut-in even though you barely know me,” you said, and he sighed.

“What’s with you and constantly reminding me that we haven’t even known each other for a full week?”

You shrugged, snuggling into your hoodie when a cold breeze blew through and ruffled your hair. “Just reminding you of your place, white boy.”

“Oh, so I’m ‘white boy’ now instead of ‘frat boy’? What other nicknames do you have for me?”

“Gnat. Now take me to the movie theatre,” you said, and Eren held up his hands in mock defense.

“Okay, whatever you want, princess. It’s over on the next block,” he told you, pointing towards a corner several hundred meters away. People streamed in and out of it, chatting with each other, and you hurried your steps over to it to save yourself the embarrassment of having Eren see you look around more like a child in awe. 

Eren went up to the ticket booth to buy the tickets while you looked around the downtown area more, careful not to bump into people as you spun around. You felt like you were in another city or even country with how different it looked to you. Maybe if you had gone outside once in a while with Jayden, you would have known all about it, but alas, your anime boys had been too sexy to neglect, and you’d never set foot down here until now. 

A tap to your shoulder caused your body to jolt, and you looked up to see Eren tilting his head to the side. He jabbed a thumb over his back in the direction of the entrance, and you nodded before rushing over to avoid his gaze that bore into your body. The smell of popcorn and soda hit you first before your eyes took in everything.

Your eyes widened as you stepped inside, the large, red interior of the theatre spreading in front of you with several lit signs lining the walls and telling you what movies were available for showing. Among many new releases, you spotted the “10 Things I Hate About You” reshowing sign for an anniversary since the release, and you sighed, fists clenching. Several people stood in line to grab food and refreshments while others streamed into the long hallway that branched into the different cinemas. 

“Do you have the tickets?” you asked, and Eren rolled his eyes with an ‘of course’ and stuck his hands into his pockets. When he pulled them out, his eyes widened, and he patted around his body. Your heart pounded and eyes turned to saucers as you grabbed at his hand in his pocket to pull it out and peer inside to see the white slips of paper. Nothing. You looked up at Eren with disbelief plastered on your face. “Don’t tell me you forgot them when you  _ just _ bought them!” 

He reached out to your hair right behind your ear and retracted his hand, the tickets right between his fingers. “Well, would you look at that? Here they are!”

You kicked him in the calf.

“Ow. It was just a little joke. Did you think I was that stupid to forget the tickets?” he asked as he bent over and rubbed at his calf. “Damn, you kick hard even if it’s just a small kick.”

“Yes, you seem like the forgetful type. Bet you’ve gotten shit for forgetting people’s birthdays  _ all the time _ ,” you told him, and he let out sarcastic laughter.

“Ha ha ha. Very funny. I’m neither going to confirm nor deny that statement,” he said, and he moved forward towards the concession stands. You followed behind him like a lost chick and waited in line. 

As the two of you reached the concessions, the girl who looked around your age that manned the register fixed Eren with a disgusted look as she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth, her cheeks stuffed like a chipmunk.

“Mmm, always a warm welcome with you, Sasha,” Eren said as he leaned against the counter.

The girl swallowed the food with a big gulp, her throat bulging as all the popcorn went down. “What do you want.” the girl said as she wiped her hands on her clothes and hovered them over the register, her gold eyes holding nothing but boredom as she stared at him.

“Can’t you be a little nicer to me? You’ll hurt my feelings if you speak to me like that,” he said, and he pressed a hand to his heart.

Sasha sighed and put a fake smile on her face. “What could I get for you, loyal customer?” 

Eren slapped the counter top and snapped his fingers. “That’s more like it! Just grab a large popcorn.” He looked over at you as you scanned the menu. “Want anything else?” he asked you, and you jumped at his voice before shaking your head. “All right, now sap me of all my money with your overpriced shit,” he told Sasha, pulling out his credit card and swiping it once the price came up, which you refused to look at.

“Large popcorn, coming up,” Sasha said with no enthusiasm as she turned around to tell her coworker to get it ready.

“Seems you’re thrilled with this part time job of yours,” Eren asked Sasha, and she shoved a handful of popcorn into her mouth. “Bet you didn’t pay for that at all.”

“If they find out, they take it off of my already miniscule paycheck. The film club’s promises of free popcorn if you joined were a lie. Who knew you’d have to get a job here to get any during the weekly movie nights they held?” she said

“You get to see movies for free though, right?” Eren said, and she shook her head and shoved the popcorn into his hands once her coworker handed it to her.

“Half off. Now hurry along to your movie so you don’t miss it and so I can eat more.” She stole a piece of popcorn from the bucket in his hands. “Oh, and don’t drag the girl into the bathrooms after the movies. I don’t want to have to clean anything of yours up anymore during closing.”

“Hey, she’s off-limits for me at the moment, so rest assured that nothing of the sort will happen.”

“Wow, a girl rejected you besides the lesbians?”

Eren groaned. “If you bring that up again, I’m not bringing you any leftovers from my work.”

Sasha’s eyes widened, and she launched forward at him. “No! Anything but that! And your having quickies in the bathrooms too. I won’t bring it up anymore, so don’t cut off my supply of free sweets. Just go to your movie that starts in like,” she looked at her watch, “three minutes.” 

“The  _ trailers _ that officially start in three minutes you mean.” Eren didn’t say anything else when Sasha lunged at him, arms aimed towards his bucket of popcorn, and he stepped back, out of her way, grabbing your arm to drag you towards the employee checking tickets. After being told which room to head to, he released your arm and walked towards the specified number.

“Do you know her?” you asked as you walked slightly behind him, having overheard their conversations. You felt awkward being there, knowing that Eren had taken other girls here, only to do it in the bathroom with them, but it was too late to back out now.

“Sasha Blouse? She might not look it, but she’s in our college’s sorority. I know her thanks to my sister,” Eren said, hands in pockets as his eyes dragged over the movie posters lining the walls.

“You have a sister?” you asked.

“Adopted, but yeah. She’s in the  ΣΩΝ sorority, too,” he said, not going into more detail. He stopped, and you bumped into his back. “Oh, here’s our spot. Ladies first.” He bowed for you, and you walked in without a sound, the words you wanted to say sticking in your throat. 

The two of you headed to your seats, past the couples cuddling next to each other, and you plopped down. A groan of discomfort left you as your tampon moved inside, and you wriggled around in your seat to get more comfortable. 

“Are you being possessed? I happen to know a priest or two if you want me to call them and get you an exorcism,” Eren whispered to you as he placed the popcorn in his lap and turned his phone off.

“Shut up.” You shut your phone off too and grabbed at the popcorn to shove it into your mouth.

Eren held his hands up. “Woah, there. Didn’t expect you to be so straightforward in the theatre.”

You glared at him and stopped eating your popcorn, and he smiled at you before the lights dimmed, the trailers for other movies popping onto the screen as people quieted down. After several minutes of trailers for movies you know you’d never watch, the actual movie began, and you sank back into your seat, hoping the movie wouldn’t bring about hundreds of flashbacks you wanted to forget. 

Eren nudged your arm, and you jolted before looking at him. “See? There’s just a bunch of couples here. If I went with the other guys, they’d never shut up about it and complain. There’s actually not as many as I thought there’d be, to be honest.” He shoved popcorn into his mouth, and you pulled your legs up to your chest, wrapping your arms around your legs and resting your chin between your knees as you peered at the screen. Heath Ledger’s character, Patrick, came on screen, and Eren ooh’ed. “Is he your type?” he asked you.

“Just watch the movie,” you said, his commentary trying to drag you back into your repressed memories. He said nothing else, and you let out a shaky breath as you focused on the movie. 

Several minutes of the movie had passed without him saying anything and none of your memories popping up, and you turned to look at him to see if he fell asleep. You sucked in a deep breath when Eren’s side profile morphed into one you remembered all too well. Where Eren’s nose began turning up at the tip, the familiar straight, sharp nose of your ex greeted you instead. The long black hair of the frat boy’s changed into gray hair cut into the unforgettable undercut colored dark that you remembered running your fingers through one too many times. Wide, green eyes turned beady, intense and brown, sitting beneath thick eyebrows resting on low brow bones. The sharp jaw belonging to his long face begged you to trace it with your fingers, and your hands twitched on your arms. 

He noticed you staring at him, and he turned to look at you, the face of your ex staring straight at you. From their kissable lips to their sharp eyes that seemed to know everything about you, their straight nose to their squared chin, all of it was like you hopped into a time machine and traveled back in time to a few years ago. Late night movie sessions with your head resting in his lap while he ran his fingers through your hair resurfaced, and your bottom lip trembled. You shouldn’t have agreed to watch this movie. 

Your ex looked back at the movie and pointed at the screen, at Kat and Patrick. “Did you know this movie is based on The Taming of the Shrew? Petruchio becomes Patrick, and Katherina becomes Katarina. Patrick ‘tames’ the wild Kat by the end of the movie, just not through psychological torment like Petruchio did to Katherina. Some people criticize this movie for turning Kat into a different person and taking away her strong personality after she’s ‘tamed’, but doesn’t it also feel like Patrick has been tamed too? He stops trying to chase after her for the money and instead accepts her for who she is and lets her be herself. He never tells her to stop acting the way she did in the beginning. She learns how to act in the relationship just as much as he does,” your ex’s voice came, and your heart clenched over that familiar spiel you had heard the second time you watched the movie with him. All that was missing was your head in his lap while he fed you popcorn and ran his other hand up and down your side. 

A muffled voice came, trying to interrupt your memories coming to attack you, but you ignored it and focused on the man your eyes decided to trick you into seeing as he looked at you again. The man’s lips pulled back into that smile that always had your legs turning to jelly and heart to mush, ready to do anything for him if he so much as asked for you to, his eyes staring right into yours as if he could see the whole galaxy inside them. Your breathing caught in your chest, and when the face of your past lover moved in closer to you, you closed your eyes, waiting for his soft lips to envelope yours and melt away all the worries plaguing you. 

Instead, a cool hand pressed against your forehead, and your body jolted, the image of your ex disappearing and turning back to Eren’s face, eyebrows knitted together in worry as his wide, green eyes flitted across your face. 

“Do you have a fever?” he asked, his voice soft as he pressed the back of his hand to your head. “You’ve been staring at me for a while without saying anything, and you looked about ready to pass out.”

“Uh…” You looked to the large screen, seeing the poetry scene from the movie, and looked back at Eren after you realized just how much of the movie you missed. You straightened yourself, your legs unfolding and hands resting in your lap. “I’m-I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. The movie’s almost over anyways. Might just be tired.”

Though his shadowy face didn’t look convinced, he turned his attention back to the movie and placed a hand atop your hands in your lap, and you froze when he gave you a soft squeeze. When your eyes glanced at him, he remained focused on the movie and didn’t look over at you. The lights from the screen lit up his face as he nibbled at the inside of his cheek, and you squeezed his hand back, watching as he pursed his lips and kept a secure grip around your hand. 

You couldn’t even focus on the rest of the movie as you paid more attention to the cool feeling of Eren’s hand in yours, his larger hand swallowing yours up as he held it like a precious treasure he didn’t want to lose. Every time a thought of your ex tried to pop up, you’d squeeze Eren’s hand, and he’d squeeze yours back and rub small circles on the back of your hand with his thumb. Before long, the credits rolled, the lights coming back on, and Eren stood up, his hand refusing to detach from yours as he tugged you up. 

As he pulled you out of the cinema into the concessions and restroom area, you stumbled behind him while staring at his back, mouth opening and closing like a fish as you tightened your grip on his hand. He stopped and turned around to face you, and you peered up at him with tears in your eyes as your lips trembled. 

“I’m sorry… I-I didn’t mean to ruin the movie,” you told him as the tears threatened to fall, and he opened his mouth to speak before he closed it and bit his bottom lip in thought. He tugged your hoodie over your head.

“Wait here, okay?” he said, and he released his grip on your hand, his fingers slipping past yours as your hand fell to your side. He walked over to Sasha, who tossed candy into her mouth out of pure boredom, and you walked over to a bench to sit down and rest your head in your hands.

You smacked the sides of your head. “Can you  _ not _ fuck things up  _ for once _ ? He asked you to watch a movie and all you could think about was your ex? You’re so fucking stupid! It’s been a year! Fucking get over him!”

Eren’s tongue jabbed at the inside of his cheek as his eyes trailed over to your hunched figure, and Sasha cursed when the piece of candy she threw smacked into her teeth and clattered to the floor, turning his attention towards her. 

“What do you want now? Asking for permission before you take your girl to the stalls?” she asked as she rubbed her aching tooth and shoved more candy into her mouth.

“No, I came to buy something, stupid. Now stop eating and help me. I don’t know what girls like,” Eren told her, and she gave him an incredulous look.

“Yeah, I know. Why the hell do you need to know that though?” she said, and her eyes widened when he pointed over his shoulder at you, who smacked at your hooded head. “Oh, for your mental patient?”

“Don’t call her that. She just seemed out of it and depressed, so just get me something to cheer her up, okay? That’s all I ask for.” Eren pulled out his wallet as Sasha kept staring at you as you tilted your head back to smack it into the wall, eyes red from rubbing them, and she shoved more candy into her mouth. Eren’s jaw twitched when he heard the sound of the hard candies crushing in her mouth, and he shut her jaw, one hand on top of her head and one cupping her chin. “Chop chop, minimum wage employee.”

Sasha glared at him and swatted his hands away to swallow the candy. “I’ll have you know that I get paid twelve dollars an hour, which is  _ more _ than minimum wage.”

“But didn’t you get your pay reduced because of your eating habits?” Eren said as she shoved her hands into the glass case full of boxed candy.

“Ha ha ha. Fuck you.” She scanned a random box of candies before shoving it into his arms. “Take these to your girl and then take her to a mental asylum.”

“I will steal these and blame it on you,” he said, pointing a finger at her, and she snapped her jaws at his finger. He retracted it and swatted at her head. “Bad dog!”

Before Sasha could say more, he swiped his card and plugged in his pin before he dashed off towards you. The sound of his footsteps reached your ears, and you stood up as he reached you. 

“Come on. Let’s head back,” he said, circling an arm around your shoulders to usher you out the doors. “Oh, and here you go.”

He handed you a box of M&M’s, and you took them into your sweater paws, the small chocolates clattering around inside the box. You stared up at him with blinking eyes as he slid his arm off your shoulder, and your body pushed closer to him as it missed the extra warmth. He nodded towards the box, urging you to open it, and the top of the box popped open when you slid your fingernail underneath it. You held the box out to him.

He held up a hand and gently pushed it back to you. “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t eat them. I’m on a diet. Gotta keep my figure, you know?” he said, running his hands down his stomach, and you grabbed a few out to pop them into your mouth. 

The two of you set off at a slow pace back to your dorm, and you stared at the ground as you walked beside him and popped M&M’s into your mouth, taking note of which color you ate. The once comfortable silence between the two of you before the movie now choked you and made it impossible for words to come out of your mouth. You wanted to apologize, but the awkwardness wouldn’t let you.

“I’m sorry for dragging you to see the movie with me,” Eren said, and you whipped your head towards him, your hand stopping in the air, a red M&M clutched between your forefinger and thumb. “You told me you hated it, but you still watched it with me.” When you said nothing, though you tried to as the red M&M slipped from your fingers and crushed beneath your shoes, he sighed. “How about we go do something  _ you  _ like soon to make up for it? It can be anything. Skinny dipping. Body shots. Sexercise,” he said in a joking tone, and you would have rolled your eyes and playfully slapped his shoulder had your hormones not been telling you to burst into tears in that moment.

“I’m the one who should be saying ‘sorry,’” you said, and you rubbed your eyes with your sleeve, lips trembling as the scent of your ex trickled into your nose. “You invited me. I said yes, and I ruined it. You like the movie, but I ruined it!” You let out a shaky gasp as the first tear streamed down your face.

At the sound, Eren stopped and turned around to come face to face with your tear stained cheeks and red eyes. He rushed forward and gripped the sides of your face. “Hey, hey. It’s all right. I chose a bad time to ask you. Don’t cry,” he said in a panicked tone, thumbs desperately trying to swipe the tears away, and you shook your head.

“It’s my hormones,” you told him, and you swiped at your runny nose with your hoodie. “I couldn’t even focus on the movie or even you.” 

“And that’s fine. You didn’t have to come along if you weren’t comfortable. Let’s just take you back home, okay?” he said, and you pulled your face free of his hands.

“I’ll head back by myself. I don’t want to waste any more of your time,” you said and started forwards, but Eren ran up to you and grabbed your arm.

“No, I’ll take you back. It’s not safe for you to be going alone, especially when you’re vulnerable like this.” He intertwined his fingers with yours and clasped your hand before he slipped both your hands into the pocket of his jacket. 

“I see you’re taking this rapist repellent job seriously,” you tried to joke to forget the fact that you cried in front of him, but the thickness of your voice from crying made you cringe, and Eren chuckled.

“You’re the one who assigned it to me, so I better.” 

You put the box of M&M’s up to your mouth and tilted your head back to let the chocolate candies pour into your mouth. The empty box fell into a nearby trashcan when you passed by one, and you felt  _ slightly  _ better. 

“Do you do this often, Mr. Frat Boy?” you asked, an attempt of a smile pulling your lips apart, and Eren hummed.

“If I say no, will you believe me?” he said, and you chuckled and shook your head. “Didn’t think so. It’s the truth though! No one else let’s me do this with them. They’d rather be in a random bathroom stall, which I don’t mind, but late night walks like this are fun as well.” 

At that, you pursed your lips and shivered when a breeze blew through and whipped at your exposed face. You scrunched up your shoulders, and Eren tugged you closer to his body. You didn’t say anything as you accepted it and pushed your body closer to his warm one.

“I hope you forget this happened and still talk to me,” you said.

“Do you think I’m that horrible of a person that I’d push you away for crying in front of me?” he asked. “I said I wanted to get to know you. Lemme be a friend for you, okay? Let’s make Jay jealous and get closer than the two of you are. I’d love to see their face when that day comes.”

“If you want to be neutered, then be my guest. Jayden likes priding themself on being super close to me, so be prepared for them constantly trying to outdo you,” you replied.

“Then I’ll just have to one up them, won’t I?” Eren said, and you rolled your eyes. He pointed at you. “There! I got you to roll your eyes again!”

“Oh my God.” You retracted your hand from his and slipped it out of his pocket into yours with another roll of your eyes. “Good bye now,” you said as you sped up your pace, the dormitory coming into view. 

“But I haven’t taken you home yet!” Eren called out when you got several meters away from him.

“This is far enough. Bye!” You waved and tried to dash for the door, but he ran up to you before you could and grabbed you from behind. 

He picked you up as you squeaked and tried to pry his hands off of you, but his arms didn’t budge while he walked with you in his arms towards the entrance. You grunted as he set you down on your feet, a smirk on his face when you looked up at him with an annoyed look. His head tilted, hands in pockets, as he bit his lip.

“Are we about to kiss right now?” he said, his pitch raising in a joking manner, and you pushed his shoulder.

“If you want frozen tears and snot on your face,” you joked, and he shrugged, moving in closer to your face.

You ran into the building before he could reach your lips, and he chuckled and waved at you when you turned around and gave him a small sweater paw wave before you disappeared up the stairs. You watched as he spun around and walked over to the fraternity, his tall figure appearing small the farther he moved and the higher you climbed up the stairs. The familiar door of your dorm room met you, and you wasted no time in opening it and slamming the door shut behind you.

Your bed looked so comforting, and after you slipped off your shoes and threw your phone and keys onto the nightstand, you jumped on top of your bed and grabbed a pillow to hug against your body. You curled in on yourself, the pillow wedged between your legs and arms, and you let the rest of your backed up tears fall. It had been a long time since you had last had memories of  _ him _ come back, and that fact that they had decided to return during a movie with Eren made you feel like shit.

The hormones from your period seemed to whisper in your ear and warn you about Eren. You didn’t know him that well, and he could very well turn out to be the same person as your ex—kind at first before turning into your worst nightmare. You hated how these thoughts popped into your mind, accompanied by all the good memories you shared with your ex from baking cookies on Christmas to splashing around in the ocean together and many more that only served to break the dam holding your tears back. 

Thick sobs left you, your pillow absorbing all of them, and you tightened your arms around the pillow. You didn’t want to remember all the good times with your ex when the bad times outweighed them, but the movie with Eren seemed to have triggered them to come rushing back, no matter how much you opposed it.

“Fuck, Y/N! Eren’s not going to be like him. Stop remembering those memories and thinking the ones with Eren will soon turn horrible like they did with him. Just fucking forget about him already! You were doing fine, so why now? Why did you have to remember, you stupid, fucking idiot?!” you cursed at yourself, words muffled as more sobs left you. Good thing Jayden wasn’t there to see you bawling your eyes out. 

A memory of your first date with your ex, the both of you stiff and awkward as you stared at each other—a fact the two of you later laughed over—popped up, and you shook your head to rid yourself of it. The way your ex would keep flicking his eyes up to look at you came back, and you remembered that when you had asked what was wrong, he had replied with, ‘You just look super beautiful.’ The words that had once made you blush and hide your face behind a menu now made you sick to your stomach as the tears fell harder.

After a while of being harassed by memories, the tears stopped falling, but you kept crying into your pillow. Your mind reached the final good memory before the horrible ones would begin and interrupt the other good memories every so often, and you flipped onto your back to shove the pillow over your face and scream into it. You just wanted your mind to be blank so that you could stop crying.

Your phone dinged with a notification, and you pulled the pillow off, your crying having calmed down, to grab it off your nightstand. The light from your phone made your eyes ache when you turned it on, and through squinted eyes, you opened the notification. A text from Eren.

All that greeted you was a video, and when you clicked on it, a smile spread on your face. He had sent you a video of a puppy chasing after a mop and falling over as it slid around. The sadness you had felt before melted away, a warm feeling spreading through your chest, and you shut your phone off to place it on the nightstand as you laid on your side and clutched at your chest. If Eren kept this up, you didn’t know how much more your heart could take before your mind would turn mushy and be filled with nothing but him.

You liked that idea more than thinking about your ex.


	4. insomniac

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once you close your eyes, eyes   
> Running down your thighs, thighs   
> Got you hypnotized   
> I, I got you begging for more   
> Than just a dream, dream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️   
> THIS CHAPTER IS WAY TOO LATE OMG IM SO SORRY FOR TAKING SO LONG  
> future updates will hopefully be on time❗❗  
> i hope this chapter isn't too bad, though, because i couldn't write for like two weeks—it was all off and on for like an hour at a time💔  
> see you in the next chapter, which i will hopefully be able to finish by friday❤️

“Bitch, wake the fuck up!”

A weight pressed down on your body and bounced atop you, and you groaned but refused to open your eyes, instead opting to cover your eyes with your arm. Your momentary escape disappeared, though, as it was pulled off and thrown to your side where you didn’t dare to drag it up. You squeezed your eyes tighter shut and took slow, deep breaths to enter your dreams again, but the demon known as your roommate wouldn’t let you and ripped open the curtains with a metallic sound that echoed in your ears and mixed with the bright sunlight that turned your black vision red and forced you awake.

“Get the fuck up right now, whore!” Jayden yelled as they grabbed your arms and pulled you into a sitting position to latch onto your eyelids and pull them back.

“What do you want?” you grumbled as you blinked your tired eyes open, and the big grin on their face brought a feeling of dread settling into your stomach that wouldn’t leave.

Their curly hair bounced as they plopped into a sitting position next to your legs, hands closed into happy fists as they squealed. “Okay. Do you remember how you told me that it was your dream to work at a pet shop?” they said, and you scoffed, a scratchy sound that made your dry throat burn.

“Yeah, when we were in  _ middle school _ . What about it?” you asked, and their iris disappeared as they rolled their eyes.

“Okay, miss grouchy-pants. Anyways, I know someone who opened up a pet shop recently, and they’re looking for someone to work there either part-time or permanently, and I may have already submitted a resume for you,” Jayden said, giving you a wide, toothy smile to distract you from their words, but you stared at them with a blank look as the cogs in your head turned and processed their words.

“You  _ what _ ?!”

“I know! It was the least I could do considering how you told me about my job, and guess what? The pet shop wants to hire you!” Jayden didn’t notice the bewildered look in your eyes as they shoved a flyer into your face mentioning the opening of a new pet shop in bright colors on a pale blue sheet of paper. “Since the owner knows me, they trusted my judgment and decided to give you an interview. It’s in-” they checked their watch, “thirty minutes, so hurry and get dressed so I can take you to the shop. It’s downtown and like a fifteen minutes walk from here. I also met the other workers, and they’re all super sweet and nice, so hurry up!” 

Your jaw went slack as your mouth hung open in shock while Jayden tugged on your arm to yank you out of your bed, and you let yourself be pulled out as you stumbled to the ground. They moved you to your closet and took out random clothes before stripping you and dressing you up like their life-sized Barbie doll until you stood there in a pair of khaki slacks, a white button up shirt, and a pair of black high heels. They added accessories to you and held your face between their palms, squishing your cheeks as they looked you straight in the eyes. Your eyes bored into their black irises, and they cooed at you.

“You look so precious, my beautiful little bestie! I know you’ll do amazing at the job interview!” Jayden said, making smooching noises at you, and you moved backwards to pull yourself free from their grasp. Their hands fell to their sides as you quirked an eyebrow at them from a meter away from them.

“You mean the one you suddenly shoved upon me without telling me?” Your shirt rustled as you crossed your arms, and Jayden gave you an awkward smile.

“Look on the bright side! You can get a job and make money and not have to drop out to become a stripper. Though, if you did become a stripper, just know that I’ll be your number one supporter who throws all their money at your sexy ass,” they told you, and you shook your head with a soft chuckle.

“I’ll just become a tax evader and run off to the mountains before I become a stripper. I don’t have enough upper body strength to pole dance, nor do I have enough sex appeal. Do you see all the fat hanging out and flapping in the wind? I look like a beached whale half the time!” you said, to which Jayden’s jaw dropped in shock.

“Oh, no you don’t! Do  _ not _ start talking about yourself like that, you sexy ass bitch! Get rid of those self-deprecating thoughts and embrace how beautiful you are. If I had a dick, it would be erect for you every second of the day,” they said with a smug look on their face, and you groaned in discomfort as you imagined the scenario.

“Don’t say that ever again…” You shuddered, and Jayden tsked in disappointment as your reaction.

“Fine, but just know that you’re sexy and that if they reject you, then they’re stupid. Not that they will reject you since it’s  _ you _ we’re talking about. Now come on! I want to barge into the pet shop at random times to pet the dogs and watch you be cute with the animals.” They grabbed your arm and dragged you out of the dorm before you could argue, grabbing at your keys, wallet, and phone before shutting the door and taking you down the elevator to exit the dormitory building. You stumbled behind them as they made their way to the parking garage nearby.

“Wait, you got a car?” you asked, remembering how their last car ended up with the rear bumper destroyed and right side dented.

“I know what you’re thinking, and no, I will not crash this one. I drove with Chase a few times to get practice, and he screamed at me enough for me to learn what  _ not _ to do, so we’ll be fine. Also, I don’t want you to have to walk all the way to the pet shop in heels! No blisters here! So get in before I kidnap you,” they said, but their words did little to remove the worries plaguing your thoughts.

“You already kidnapped me,” you said, and they scrunched up their nose at you. “It’s early on a Saturday, and you literally dragged me out of my bed to take me to a job interview I didn’t know about until ten minutes ago. I could still be asleep, dreaming about Hak!”

Jayden sighed as they opened their car door to shove you inside and ran over to the driver’s side to plop into the seat and start up the car. They locked the doors before you could escape, and you sighed, buckling up and crossing your arms in defeat as you were too lazy to struggle. “Think of it this way, you’ll get money once you ace the interview. Money means you can buy whatever you want. And what is it that you want?”

“My Saturday morning back,” you grumbled, and they slapped your arm. “Ow! I was being honest!”

“Yeah, yeah, smartass. Just give it a chance, okay? Think of this as me paying you back for helping me land my job as a disk jockey.”

As they drove out of the parking garage, you sank back into the seat while the university passed by in a blur, the environment changing to bustling people and tall buildings as the two of you entered the downtown area. The fifteen minutes it would have taken to walk turned into five minutes, and Jayden parked the car in front of a quaint building with large glass windows with puppies and kittens jumping around in open-top pens for passer-bys to peer at. You unbuckled yourself and stepped out after grabbing your things, waiting for Jayden to join you, but the click of the lock sent your mind into panic mode.

The window rolled down at a slow pace that made your blood run cold, and it stopped when there was just enough space to not let your arm slip through to unlock the door. Jayden gave you a smile and pulled out a pair of sunglasses from the glove compartment, slipping them on and watching your face morph into terror as you figured out what was happening. 

“All right! Tell me how it goes, baby. I’ll be at the cafe and bakery right around the corner, so just call if things go wrong! Oh, and don’t think of heading back right now. I have D’Marcus and Leon sitting outside the frat house on the porch on post to see if you head back without me. They’ll grab you and drive you back here if they spot you. Unless they’re playing chess.” Jayden blew a kiss at you and put the sunglasses on, rolling the window up and cutting the thin thread that kept your mental state from shattering as your body froze up. The car backed up and left you alone on the curb side as it disappeared around a corner.

Your head whipped around to look at the pet shop before returning to where the car disappeared from your sight. After standing on the curb for a few minutes, heart pumping and veins thrumming with panic, you took a deep breath that filled your lungs with false determination and turned around to the pet shop. The first tentative step you took towards the pet shop only worsened the pounding against your ribs, but you tried to ignore it as you focused on the puppies wrestling with each other. The bell attached to the door rang, startling you with the sudden noise as you opened the front door and entered. 

Loud yipping, meowing, and cawing of birds echoed and mixed with the strong smell of animals in the pet shop, the inside bigger than you thought it would be from the small exterior. The shop had been sandwiched between two other buildings, but once inside, it felt like it wasn’t surrounded by other buildings and had all the space in the world. A walkway down the middle of the building asked you to step forward, two long fences along the sides that kept the animals from running around instead of glass boxes or cages. A few puppies yipped as they wrestled behind the fences while the cats on the other side meowed and licked their paws.

While you stood in the doorway and looked around, a puppy stood on its hind legs and rested its front paws on the fence barring it from you. It yipped at you, wagging its stubby tail when you turned your attention to it. You reached a hand over to pat it on the head, cooing from how soft its yellow fur felt against your hands. It licked at your hand and sent you into a fit of giggles from how it tickled your palm with its warm tongue, your anxiety melting away with each happy lick from the puppy.

“How may I help you?” a soft voice came, and you looked over to see a girl with blonde hair staring up at you with big blue eyes. She wore a yellow apron with the pet shop’s name, Fur-ever Friends, across her chest, little colorful paws surrounding the name. 

“Uhm… I’m here for the interview?” you said, unsure of the words as they left your mouth, but her eyes lit up the moment the words left you.

“You must be Y/N then! Jayden mentioned you when they stopped by before. Ms. Hange has been waiting for you,” she said, and she motioned towards a door in the back. 

You nodded to her, the nerves setting in once more even though her soft voice told you not to worry. With shaky legs, you walked towards the door and took a deep breath in front of it before knocking. A loud, cheery voice called out for you to enter, and you turned the knob, blood pounding in your ears as you opened the door. A woman sat in a chair, an ocelot curled around the back as it rubbed the top of its head against the back of her fingers.

"Y/N, I presume?" the woman asked as her eyes flicked up to your nervous face, and she leaned forward, resting her elbows against the table, fingertips pressed against each other as her gaze gauged how you reacted. The ocelot’s big, brown eyes fixed you with a steely gaze that made you gulp.

“Yes, ma’am,” you said as you shut the door behind you and closed yourself into the room. The woman motioned for you to have a seat in front of her, and as you stepped closer, the ocelot’s brown eyes followed your tense figure. You sat down in the chair, your joints creaking as your butt hit the cushion. The ocelot jumped down from the woman’s chair to silently stand atop the desk. It sat down in front of you and tilted its head to the side, and you pursed your lips to keep from breathing too hard in its direction and cause it to jump you.

“Oh, you don’t need to be so nervous, sweetums. Andres doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just a curious little fellow, don’t you think?” she said, and you nodded with a gulp that bobbed your throat. "Hange Zöe, at your service. Feel free to look around while I review a few things." She pulled out a piece of paper, flipped it over, skimmed it, and glanced back up at you while your eyes glanced around her room, taking in all the pictures of wild animals on the walls next to tourist shirts from different countries. "Jayden didn't tell you about this beforehand, did they?"

Her sudden question caused your tense body to jerk, your wide eyes telling her all she needed to know.

"Thought as much. They're a spontaneous person. Did you know they once asked me to take them on a trip to the Amazon  _ the day I was going to leave _ ? Crazy, I tell you!" You nodded, understanding what she meant. "They did tell me wonderful things about you. They even brought in your resume for me to look over." She hummed. "Luckily, this isn't a veterinary clinic, so no knowledge of that is necessary. Vet students  _ do _ work here for the experience, but you won't have to worry about that. Let me ask you a few questions before I gauge your capabilities."

"All right," you replied, voice shaky as the ocelot licked its paw, swiping at its ear while its eyes bore into you.

"First, why’d you choose this place?" She leaned forward onto her desk, hands clasped. “I’d rather ask you other questions, but this is common protocol. Obviously you want money, but why this place instead of somewhere else. There’s plenty of other places desperate for college students to apply.”

You cleared your throat and adjusted yourself in the chair to get more comfortable. “Well, Jayden applied here for me, but I have loved animals for as long as I can remember. I wanted to be a veterinarian for a while until I found out I’d have to put animals down.”

Hange nodded, and the ocelot pawed at her hand. As she scratched the cat’s head, she looked you in the eyes. “What days would you be able to work?”

“Weekends mostly, though I tend to finish my school work before Thursday,” you answered, and she nodded again.

“Just a few more questions.”

Once you nodded, she bombarded you with several questions about your work ethic, how many other jobs you had before, if you’re willing to learn on the job, and more that sent your brain spinning as the cogs worked to produce coherent answers. After almost an hour of questions—she had lied about asking a  _ few _ more—she leaned back in her chair, the ocelot asleep next to her computer, and honestly, you couldn’t blame the little thing. If Jayden hadn’t imposed this on you suddenly, you’d still be asleep, dreaming about things you’d forget once you woke up. For once, though, you were happy about their little meddling as it would give you something to do and earn your bank account money if you landed the job. Hange thanked you, and you stood up, shook her hand, and readied to leave.

“Ah, would you be a dear and ask Historia to come in? I’d like to discuss things with her,” Hange asked, and she sighed when your eyebrows knitted together, unsure who Historia was. “She didn’t wear her name tag again, did she?” You shook your head, and she sighed again. ‘Just open the door real fast.” Still confused, you opened it up and jumped when the woman yelled. “Historia! Put your damn nametag on or you won’t get to play with Patricia anymore!” 

“No! Anything but that!” the soft voice of the girl you met before said, panic shaking her voice.

“Then put your nametag on and come here!” Hange sat back, reaching a hand out to stroke the back of her ocelot, the wild cat arching its back and whipping its tail from side to side as a purr rumbled in its throat. “You can head into the main room and play around with the animals.”

You nodded and thanked her before you left, Historia at the door once you opened it, and she bowed to you and slipped into the room. Hange’s tone sounded serious as she addressed Historia, and you closed the door, leaving just you and the dozens of puppies and kittens. A few birds cawed from large cages, and the sudden noise startled you forward and earned the attention of the puppies, who all ran over to you and piled on top of each other for your affection. The kittens stared at you with mild curiosity as you stepped towards the dogs and extended your hand down into their large pen. Dozens of tiny tongues licked at your hand, and you giggled, crouching down on your knees to pet them better. 

The little labrador from when you first entered attacked your hand first with kisses, pushing the others out of the way, and you petted its face and scratched its chin before a black dog caught your eyes. Its long, fluffy coat of luscious black fur reminded you of a familiar someone’s long, black hair, and your hand instinctively reached out to run your fingers through it. The puppy accepted your hand as you rubbed its sides, remembering Eren’s hair and chuckling as the puppy jumped around your hand, batting at it with its paws and nipping at your fingers. The other puppies had lost interest in your strange scent and busied themselves with wrestling each other, and you busied yourself with the black dog. A glint of metal grabbed your attention, and you reached out a hand to grab the name tag.  _ Matteo _ .

“He’s a Belgian Sheepdog,” a voice said, and you jumped, turning around to see Historia leaning forward next to you, a soft smile on her face as she watched Matteo rub his face against your skin. “I’m surprised he let you pet him so quickly. It took me this whole week for him to so much as acknowledge me. He’s relatively new, and he was the runt of his litter, so he’s used to being mistreated. I didn’t expect him to trust a person so fast. It seems Ms. Hange made the right decision in choosing to hire you.”

The words took a few seconds to register, and once they did, your jaw went slack. “I got the job? So fast?”

Historia nodded, her bright blue eyes twinkling as she looked at you. “Yes, out of everyone who applied, your resume was the best. The others chose this place to apply because they expected it to be a quick job where they wouldn’t have to do much work.” She held out a hand for you to shake, and you stared at it with wide eyes. “I look forward to working with you.”

“M-me too…” you stuttered out as you shook her hand.

“Ms. Hange will text you when to come in next week for your training, but I’m pretty sure it will be next Friday. You’ll be able to meet some other workers and get a feel for the place then!” Her cheery attitude brought a warmth to your chest, and you wanted nothing more than to envelope her in a tight hug.

“Thank you.” She crouched down to pet a few puppies, eyes glancing at their water bowls, and you stared at her. “I’m sorry to ask this, but do you know where the nearest cafe is?” you asked, and she turned to look at you. You were going to choke Jayden and kiss them when you saw them, and you knew they’d be in a coffee shop, sipping on their bitter coffee with too many shots of espresso. 

“Just head out the door, go around the corner to the right, and you should see a glass store at the end. It might be busy around this time, though. It usually is on the weekends, especially in the morning,” she said, and you thanked her.

“I’m pretty sure Jayden is there, so I won’t be staying there long. I’ll see you next week…” your eyes searched her apron and caught on her name tag, “Historia. I see you put your name tag on.”

“I had to, or else I wouldn’t be able to play with Patricia. See you, Y/N!” She waved goodbye to you, turning around to talk to the dogs when they nipped at her shirt, and you waved before you exited and stomped towards the cafe.

Sure enough, when you turned the corner off to the right, you saw a big glass-walled building with people streaming out of it, and you sped up towards it. A familiar curly haired person sat at a table near the walls, and you entered the cafe, the bell ringing as the door swung open. Chatter met your ears as the smell of cocoa beans mingled with the fresh scent of baked goods and bread. Tan walls lined with minimalist drawings of swirling letters stood where the glass walls didn’t. Jayden lifted their coffee mug up to their lips, inhaling a deep whiff before they took a sip, and you stalked over to them. You yanked the chair out in front of them and sat down, eyes slitted as you watched them drink their coffee. Jayden held up a finger as they took a long sip, sucking at the mug and making an annoying slurping sound just to urk you.

“Fuck you.”

They smiled with a sickly sweet smile as they sat the cup down on its coaster and crossed the legs, intertwining their hands and placing them on their knee. “So how was the job interview?”

“Luckily for you, I got the job. If I hadn’t, I would have strangled you for waking me up so early in the morning,” you told them, and they lifted a croissant off the plate in the middle of the cafe to nibble at it.

“See, I knew you’d get it. That’s why I put in the application for you! Now where’s my thanks?” they said, and you rolled your eyes.

“Yeah, yeah. Thank you. For once, your meddling paid off,” you said, and they gasped.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You held up a finger. “I’m talking about that one time when you stole the love letter I wrote for Jacob and gave it to him, and then he called me gross and spread rumors about me in middle school.” A second finger. Oh, and the other time you told Kenneth how I found him cute, and he said I was the ugliest girl out of everyone in 9th grade?” A third finger. “Or, that time you forced me to confess to Liam, only for him to splash me with his drink? I can keep going. I skipped  _ a lot, _ ” you said, smiling as you folded your arms on the table and leaned forward on them.

“Okay, I get it! That’s your love life, though. This is your work life. I haven’t meddled in your love life  _ at all _ throughout college.” Their eyes widened as they stared behind you before the edge of their lip twitched. “Speaking of love life…”

A hand rested against your back as a person leaned forward next to you and placed a plate of food in front of Jayden. “You got awfully silent when I came over,” a deep voice said right next to your ear, the vibrations from their voice sending shivers down your spine, and you jumped, your knees smashing into the table and making the plates clatter against each other. A few conversations stopped, and you apologized to them before they went back to talking. Eren’s hand on your back retracted, but you didn’t pay attention as you hid your face in your arms, ears burning from embarrassment. 

“Were you two gossiping about me?” Eren said, and Jayden lunged for the cookies he had placed on the table.

“Fat chance,” they said as they shoved the chocolate chip cookie in their mouth, moaning in satisfaction as the chocolate melted on their tongue. “Fuck, these are so good.”

Eren chuckled, the deep sound tickling your ears and making your chest tighten. “Thank you, my official taste tester. I’d force Armin to eat them, but he always says he’s on a diet.”

“Well, you can make as much as you’d like, and I’ll eat them all. This baby,” Jayden patted their stomach, “needs all that good shit.”

“Feel free to suggest anything else you’d like me to bake for you, and I’ll do it,” he said, and your ears perked up.

“Where is Armin?” Jayden asked as they licked their fingers to remove the melting chocolate. They left a couple cookies on the plate and pushed it towards you as their eyes wandered around the store.

“Since the stream of people calmed down, I sent him into the back to check storage,” he said, and Jayden stood up from their seat.

“I wanna see my little fluff muffin. I’ll be back, Y/N. Gonna go annoy the shit out of Armin until he throws me out. Bye~" 

You stretched out a hand to grab onto their shirt in hopes of keeping them rooted in their seat across from you, but your hand fell short as they rushed off towards the back room while calling out Armin's name. Your hand fell to the table as despair sank into your bones, the last person you wanted to see deciding to take a quick look around before they slid into Jayden's empty seat. Eren rested his elbows on the table as he leaned forward and placed his jaw in between his hands, and his green eyes followed your movements as you snatched Jayden's unfinished coffee from in front of him. Your eyes honed in on his forearms, exposed by the sleeves of his white button up he had rolled up. A muscle in his forearm moved as he tapped his jaw, and you lifted the most likely bitter and unsweetened caffeine-filled drink to your lips to distract yourself from thirsting over his arm muscles, but Eren's hand reached out to grab your wrist.

"You should really work on that caffeine addiction, princess. Don't want you getting withdrawal symptoms before it's too late," he said, and you glared at him.

“I’m doing just fine, and I am  _ not _ addicted to caffeine, okay? It just helps me finish my assignments,” you told him, shaking off his grip to sip from the mug, eyes still watching the veins on his arms bulge. You face scrunched up when the taste of bitter, unsweetened coffee hit your tastebuds and made them shrivel up.

Eren sighed and leaned back in his seat. “There’s so many better alternatives to coffee that you should try. I’m going to make you quit caffeine before you become an addict.”

“Thanks, mom. Appreciate your thoughtfulness,” you said, taking another sip, only to scrunch your face up once more at the taste.

“Ha ha.” He fell silent as his eyes watched you bring the coffee up to your lips, but before you could take one more sip, he snatched it from your hands and chugged it, cringing as the warm, bitter liquid slid down his throat. “Fuck, that’s bitter! Jay seriously has fucked tastebuds if they like this shit.” 

“Did you make it for them?” you asked, an eyebrow quirked up at him, and he avoided your gaze.

“Yeah, yeah. Just eat the cookies they left for you,” he said, and you didn’t have to be told twice.

You brought the chocolate chip cookie up to your mouth, but before you could sink your teeth into it, a feminine voice grabbed your attention.

“Thank you for the coffee and food, Eren,” the voice said, and you registered a woman you remembered seeing around campus once or twice. Your eyes focused on her hand as it dragged across Eren’s back, and he gave her a bright smile, nodding to her company that stood beside her.

“I’m glad you liked it, Yasmine. Come back any time,” he told her, and she winked at him.

“Of course, baby. I’ll see you tomorrow. Remember: the usual!” She waved goodbye and left, her friend tailing behind her, and you watched the door swing shut behind her. 

“So… what brings you here?” he asked after a long moment of awkward silence between the two of you.

“Jayden kidnapped me, dropped me off somewhere, and came here, so I decided to find them and strangle them. Too bad things didn’t go wrong, so I didn’t have an excuse to choke them out,” you said, taking a bite of the chocolate chip cookie, still warm and soft in your hand. A satisfied moan rumbled in your throat as the gooey chocolate chips exploded in your mouth, counting it in the warm, sweet flavor. The cookie itself crumbled against your tongue, bathing it in rich vanilla and brown sugar.

“What didn’t go wrong?” Eren asked, though his eyes focused on your expression as you savored the cookie with a satisfied smile

“Jayden put in a job application for me at a pet store, and I got the job,” you said, taking another bite and holding the side of your cheek as your lips pulled back into a grin as the same delicious flavor of the cookie entered your mouth.

“That’s great! Why aren’t you celebrating?” Eren grabbed the other cookie, much to your despair, but he broke it in half, giving you the larger piece as he shoved the other one into his mouth.

As you took the cookie from him, your fingertips brushing against his for a second and sending sparks shooting through your skin, you sighed and glanced up at him. “It is great, but I… I don’t know.” You shook your head. “I’m just tired from waking up early, so things aren’t registering that well in my mind,” you said. It was true. A part of you was screaming in joy for getting a job, albeit with the help of Jayden rather than by your own means, but it was a job nonetheless. The other part, though, cried tears of despair over the fact that your weekends would most likely be gone for a while.

“Think of it this way,” Eren said as he reached out a hand to try to snatch the piece of cookie in between your fingers. You tugged your hand back and shoved the cookie into your mouth as he sat back in defeat. “With this job, you’ll get money. And what can you do with money? Buy shit.”

“Or save,” you said once you swallowed the last bit of cookie.

“Or save, but who needs to do that when you can just buy all the things your heart desires. Like… oh, I don’t know, a body pillow for your lonely self to hug on your bed since you’re a shut-in,” he said, and your jaw dropped as you kicked him.

“You said you wouldn’t mention my antisocial tendencies!” you said, and he rubbed his shin.

“Well, I lied,” he said, wincing as his hand ran over the spot your foot had hit. “Why do you kick so damn hard?”

You ignored his question. “Did you also lie about helping me with my caffeine addiction?” you asked, hand reaching out for the small bit of coffee he had left behind in Jayden’s cup in hopes of getting your well deserved caffeine to jump start your brain. 

Eren grabbed the mug and held it beside him, out of your reach. “No, I am very much telling the truth, buttercup,” he said with a shit-eating grin on his face that you wanted to wipe off. In a desperate attempt to get  _ some _ caffeine, you pushed yourself up a bit and reached for the mug, elbow resting in the middle of the table as you leaned over it. Eren raised his arm in the air, your face inches from his as your eyes locked with his. “You’re pretty bold, aren’t you? If you want a kiss, all you have to do is ask, babe.” The grin morphed into his signature smirk, and God, did you want to kiss it off his face.

“That’s-” Your face heated up, and his smirk only widened. You opened your mouth to say something else, but instead, you sat down in your seat. “Don’t you need to get back to work, gnat?” you asked after a few moments, crossing your arms, and he hummed, resting his face against the palm of his hand as his fingers drummed along his cheek.

“There’s no customers coming in at the moment, so no. I’m on my break right now.” 

You looked behind you to see that it was, in fact, true. People walked past the door to the cafe, but no one else entered as the people inside either left or stayed where they sat. You sighed and looked at him.

“Oh, that reminds me. The dress from last month that you wore at the party.” You perked up at that, confused as to why he decided to bring it up now. “Yeah, it’s still at the frat house. Do you want it back?” Eren asked, and a dumbfounded look spread over your face.

“What?”

“It’s washed and all that. In fact, I can give it back to you on Monday, if you’d like. It’s a nice dress. Looks kinda expensive.”

“I-” You had forgotten all about the dress. It had been a month—a  _ month _ —since you last saw it, and his bringing it back up reminded you that you had his t-shirt and a pair of shorts shoved away in your closet somewhere so that Jayden wouldn’t see it. “Uhm, yeah. That’s-that’s fine. I should also give you the clothes I took back as well,” you said.

Eren shook his head as the hand against his face came down to brush against your arm. “You don’t have to. It’s an old shirt anyways. Besides, it looked better on you than me.”

His words sent your face burning again, a slight awkwardness spreading between the two of you at the table, and you stood up to leave.

“Are you leaving already?” Eren asked. You opened your mouth to say yes, the suffocating feeling between the two of you choking you, but his green eyes pleaded with you to stay, and your heart twinged.

_ Don’t be swayed, Y/N. _ “I only came to talk to Jayden. I don’t want to be in the way,” you told him, and he jutted his bottom lip out.

“But I was hoping you could try a few more dishes out. I tried experimenting with different ingredients and wanted to know if they would be good to add to the menu. If you want to leave, though, I’ll just have to find someone else to try them,” he said. 

You thought about staying for a bit longer, but a sudden loud voice interrupted your thoughts.

“Eren! You lied to me! You said we were out of bread flour, but Jayden found a whole basket full of it,” an irritated voice said, and you turned to see a man with short blond hair rushing out from the back, Jayden behind him with a mischievous smile on their face.

“Shit…” Eren breathed out, and he dragged a hand over his face.

The blond man stomped over to where Eren sat and crossed his arms over his chest, his foot tapping against the floor at a rapid pace. Jayden apologized to the customers still in the cafe, though it only happened to be a few who didn’t pay much mind. 

“Did you send me on a wild goose chase on purpose?” the man asked.

“No,  _ no _ ...” Eren’s voice raised in pitch. “I would  _ never _ , Armin.”

“Look, I don’t have a problem doing inventory, but when you make me do it just so you can flirt with a customer, it really pushes my buttons!” Armin said, and Eren held his hands up in defence.

“Woah, someone’s a little mad. Just say you wish you could do the same thing with that blonde girl and move on. No need to be jealous,” Eren said, and you gave him a look as Armin pursed his lips, the tips of his ears burning red. Eren dropped his hands down to his lap. “Sorry. I did lie about the bread flour, but I knew you’d make me do it if you didn’t, and when I saw Jayden enter, I knew she wouldn’t be far behind,” he said, motioning towards you.

“What? Is she your girlfriend?” Armin asked, and you almost choked on your saliva.

“No,” you said, though the words scratched your throat and felt rough on your tongue.

“Just a friend I haven’t talked to in a while. Cut me some slack just this once, Armin. I’ll help you talk with that girl if you let this go,” Eren said, and the blond man’s face twitched as he pondered on the deal for a few seconds.

“I’ll let it go  _ just this once _ . And no, I don’t need your help with Annie!” he said, his whole face turning red, and Eren ah’ed.

“So that’s her name. I think I’ve seen her in the library before, stocking shelves. She might work for the library committee.” He winked at the blushing man, who sputtered and struggled to form words, Jayden watching from behind in mild amusement. Before Armin could get anything out, the bell to the door rang, and a customer entered the cafe.

“Eren, you get it,” Armin finally managed out as he turned away and stalked back to the backroom with burning ears, Jayden giggling and teasing him as they ran after his shrinking figure.

Eren sighed as he watched the person step farther inside. “I’m sorry, angel. I was hoping to talk with you a bit longer, but duty calls,” he said, standing up from his seat as the customer went to the counter, their eyes scanning over the menu. Your hand twitched to grab his arm to keep him still, but you shoved it into your lap before you could do anything. As he passed by you to head over to the counter, he leaned in close to your ear. “I’ll bring you some things to eat and drink, so don’t leave, okay?” he said in a calm voice, and you found yourself nodding without a second thought before he smiled at you and walked over to the customer and took their order.

Your eyes wandered over to him as he typed on the cash register, the thin white button up shirt straining against his arms, and your eyes trailed over to his wide chest, the tan color of his skin just barely visible through the white material. The customer service smile on his face didn’t do his true smile justice you thought as he nodded to the customer and told them he’d have their food ready soon and bring it over to them. They thanked him and walked over to a seat, and he set to work. 

The veins in his arms bulged with every movement, and you watched as he pressed the coffee beans down, his forearms flexing and keeping your eyes glued to them. You burned holes into his body, and he must have noticed as he looked up and winked at you. You avoided his eyes and turned away, not missing the quiet sound of his chuckle that tickled your ears. Every so often, you’d glance over at him as he finished up the drink and sat it on a tray, pulling out a plate of food to put next to it. With the tray in one hand, perfectly balanced on his finger tips, he gracefully walked over to the customer and sat it down in front of them before he walked back to the counter. 

He noticed you looking at him again and puckered his lips at you before he disappeared around the back, where Armin and Jayden had gone several minutes before. You waited in silence for him to return so you could keep ogling the way his back muscles stretched the shirt and how the server’s apron wrapped around his small waist. It didn’t take long before he returned, though several tables had emptied out, leaving you, the new customer, and another table taken, and he carried out a tray with multiple plates on it, a drink stuck between the plates. 

You expected him to take it to a customer, but he made a beeline for you and placed all the plates in front of you before you could say anything, a variety of sweets and savory dishes laid out in front of you. He sat the drink in front of you as well and ran off to clean a few empty tables off. You sat, dumbfounded, for a few minutes until he returned at the speed of light and sat down in front of you once more, face resting in his hands.

“Enjoy,” he said with a smile.

“You want me to eat all this?” you asked, eyes glancing over the six plates on the table, half of them supporting an assortment of desserts while the other six held what appeared to be breakfast items. 

“You don’t have to finish them. I just wanted your opinion on how they taste. The owner said she wanted to add some new things to the menu and asked me if I had any ideas. These are my tests. So… don’t be shy and tell me how you like them. Be as honest as possible,” he said, and you gulped as his eyes bore into you. 

Though you wanted to argue that you would  _ definitely  _ gain weight after all of this food, his anticipation made you forget about your worries as you grabbed the first sweet, a triangular pastry with a purple filling oozing from the sides. Eren leaned in closer to you as you brought it up to your mouth,, your hand shaking from how much he focused on you, and you took a bite, covering your mouth.

“What? Is it bad? Did I undercook it? Are you going to puke?” he asked, head whipping around in panic, and when he tried to stand up, you grabbed his arm.

“No! It’s-” you swallowed, “really,  _ really _ fucking good.” His body relaxed at those words. “God, the butteriness of the pastry when you bite into it is just so…  _ ugh! _ It’s so flaky but so flavorful as well, and it’s not overpowering at all. And don’t get me started on the filling. Is it blueberry? It’s sweet, but not sickening at all! It also doesn’t taste fake at all. Damn, you really need to put this on the menu.” You took another bite as he smiled at you. “So fucking delicious,” you mumbled.

“There’s still more, angel,” he said, pushing what looked like a chocolate cheesecake towards you.

You held up a finger as you grabbed the tea and took a sip, sighing in content as what you had once thought was iced coffee turned out to be a matcha drink with a hint of lemon and honey that went down your throat smoothly and left your tastebuds begging for more. Eren didn’t have to tell you twice to try more, and you dug into every dish, loving the soft and chocolatey flavor of the triple chocolate cheesecake—as he called it—and the sweetness of caramel mixing with the tartness of apples in a caramel apple fritter. And that was just the sweets he gave you.

The breakfast items, consisting of an omelette with ingredients tucked inside, thick pancakes, and a quiche. The fluffiness of the eggs from the omelete melted against your tongue and gave way to cheese mixing with the saltiness of bacon and the sweetness of red peppers before a hint of tomato crept up on you to surprise attack you with sweet ham and savory mushrooms. The pancakes were airy and so soft when you took a bite, as if you were biting into a cloud, but a hint of cinnamon tickled your tongue as the sweetness of the maple syrup spread over your tongue and mingled with the taste of the pancakes. The quiche with bacon, a variety of vegetables you couldn’t name off the top of your head, and a lot of cheese filled you up the most as more eggs settled into your stomach and led the flavors of bacon and delicious vegetables down your throat before the cheese brought up the rear and stopped in your stomach. Your stomach felt ready to explode.

“I’m glad you enjoyed the food,” Eren said as he took the plates away, and you sat there in your chair for a bit to let the food digest. Another customer came in, and Eren went back to work.

You spent the next few hours watching as people streamed into the cafe and left soon afterwards, and whenever there was a free moment, Eren would give you a new plate of something he had concocted, and you’d eat it and revel in either the sweetness or savoriness that stuck to your tongue. After a food baby began to grow in your stomach, you forced Eren to stop bringing you food and struggled to stand up as drowsiness from an oncoming food coma attacked you. Eren had given you the option to sleep in the employee’s break room, as he’d be here a while and could wake you up, but you had to head back to your dorm. You thanked him, gave him some money to pay for the food—you didn’t have much cash on you, but it was better than nothing—and left before he could give you the money back. 

The walk home helped you digest the food a bit, but it didn’t do enough as your body felt heavy from all that happened today. When you reached your dorm, you shoved open the door, stripped yourself of your clothes and threw on random pajamas. You collapsed into your bed, the food Eren had you try sitting comfortably in your stomach and tugging at your eyelids. Before you knew it, your eyes closed shut, and darkness enveloped you.

\--------

Bright sunlight streamed through your curtains and shined right into your closed eyes, creating a screen of red over your vision that pulled your eyes open and shot your body into a sitting position. An uncomfortable groan left your lips as you reached your arm to the nightstand beside you to grab your phone and check the time. 9:45 am. On a Sunday. You rubbed your tired eyes, remembering all that happened yesterday—the job at the pet shop, the interview, meeting Jayden at the cafe where you met Eren, chatting with Eren while he flirted with you and looked sexy as hell, and talking for a while before you went home and slept. It had only been mid day when you closed your eyes, but for it to be the next day must have meant that your body was more tired than you expected from staying up till three in the morning to finish projects early.

You needed a pick-me-up, and you knew the cafe would be the perfect place. You’d get coffee—you’d force Eren to make you some—and you’d get to see him in his uniform for free; a win-win. After passing by Jayden’s empty bed, you opened your dresser and pulled out clothes before yanking them on and freshening up in the bathroom. Tiredness might be invading your senses, but you wouldn’t show up looking like a hot mess in front of Eren for a long time. 

Once fully dressed and ready to go, you slipped out of the room with your phone and headphones, wallet, and dorm key and headed towards the street. While you hated walking, you didn’t have a car, and you needed to wake yourself up more before seeing Eren. You did  _ not _ want to look like a brain dead zombie. A few people nodded towards you as you walked down the street, and you nodded back as you passed by the familiar buildings you remember seeing when you went to the movies with Eren. While you walked, you plugged your headphones into your ears, music slipping through the speakers to enter your ears and distract you from the people mulling around you. 

Before long, the familiar glass exterior of the cafe came into view, and you took a deep sigh to ready yourself to see Eren. The open sign stared at passerbys, but no one dared go inside. It made it easier for you, though, as you stood in front of the cafe for a bit, watching a figure shuffle around in the back before it disappeared. A bell chimed as you pulled the door open and entered the building. The scent of coffee beans and baked goods swirled in the air, tickling your nose and tempting you to come in. As the door closed behind you, you took a deep breath, sighing as the delicious smells relaxed your body.

“Hey, princess,” a deep voice suddenly rumbled behind you, and your body tensed, your head slowly turning to look behind you as warmth spread to your back. Eren towered over your body, his signature smirk curling the edge of his lips as he looked down at you like a predator ready to pounce on their prey. You stumbled forward and whipped around to look at him, your body asking for more of his warmth as it disappeared. 

“Don’t appear suddenly behind me!” you said, slapping his shoulder to hide your fright as he tilted his head back and let out a chuckle.

“Sorry. Sorry. I just couldn’t help it. You looked too defenseless,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest, and you couldn’t stop your eyes from trailing down to the bulging muscles in his forearms, exposed by the rolled up sleeves of his white button up. He motionioned with his fingers upwards, and your eyes followed to look him in the eyes. “My eyes are up here, love.”

“I wasn’t staring at you,” you lied. “Don’t get so full of yourself.” He let out a breathy laugh, and you walked into the cafe to look at the menu, ignoring his figure that walked behind you and pressed against your back. You tensed, hyper aware of how close he stuck to your body, and it took all your willpower not to turn around and grab the back of his head to smash your lips against his. His work uniform only furthered the burning pit of desire inside of you as the thin white shirt did little to hide his muscles that flexed with each movement he made.

“If you say so.” He licked his lips and stared down at you as you focused on the array of drinks offered, and a hand rested on your hip as he pulled you against his chest. Your breathing caught in your throat as his hard chest pressed into your back. “Were you so excited to see me that you rushed getting dressed?” he asked, and when you looked up at him in confusion, he nodded down with his head. Your eyes trailed down to your chest, where you noticed your nipples poking out through your t-shirt. 

You covered your chest with your hands and pushed away from him. “Don’t stare, you pervert!” 

He held his hands up in surrender as he backed off and covered his eyes. “I am now blind.” 

“It’s because it’s cold in here,” you said, trying to save at least  _ some _ face in front of his cocky expression.

“Sure it is.” He left you standing in front of the counter as he walked behind it and tapped the cash register. “Did you want to order something?”

“I’m thinking,” you said, tightening your arms around your chest to hide them from his piercing eyes that dragged along your entire body. 

“Well, as you can see, there’s no one else here, so take your time.” 

You looked around to see the empty cafe, people walking by outside but not daring to enter. It did take a little pressure off of your shoulders to really take your time to order, but the sheer amount of drink options only brought the pressure back. 

“I’ll get a vanilla cappuccino,” you finally decided upon, and Eren nodded as he tapped the screen.

“All right, a Chai Tea Latte coming right up,” he said, and your eyebrows furrowed.

“I didn’t ask for that.”

Eren leaned against the top of the register, face coming closer to yours. “I told you to get over your caffeine addiction, so I’m not going to fuel it by giving you a caffeinated drink. Tea’s also good for you.”

“Yeah, like green tea. Not a tea latte,” you told him.

“Ooh, I think we have some matcha, so…”

“Give me my damn coffee,” you said, huffing as you walked up closer to his smug face. 

“No.”

“Yes, now give it. I’m not drinking a tea latte.”

“Make me,” he said, sticking his tongue out at you, tongue piercing glinting in the bright lights of the cafe, and you lunged at him. He chuckled as he stepped back. “Careful, kitten. You might hurt yourself like that,” he said, covering his mouth as you tried to scramble over the counter to grab him.

The pet name made your ears burn, stomach doing somersaults, and you glared at him. “Fuck you.”

“Gladly. My place or yours?”

“Bye!” you said, turning around and giving up on your plan to attack him, and he rushed forward to grab your arm.

“Okay, okay. I won’t make either of the drinks, but how about I make you something to eat instead? It’s pretty early in the morning, and I doubt you ate anything before coming here,” he said, and you scoffed at him.

“What makes you think I didn’t eat?”

As if on cue, your stomach growled, and your face flushed as he gave you a knowing look.

“That’s why. Plus, you seemed to have thrown on clothes without a second thought, so I knew you came here right afterwards.” You stood still, flushed body tense and rooted to the ground, and he smiled at you. “Come into the kitchen, and I’ll make you something. Sound good?”

You nodded, though you wanted nothing more than to have the ground swallow you up, and he grabbed your wrist to pull you into the back. After passing through a small archway, the two of you entered a small kitchen, countertops lining the walls as a kitchen isle stood in the middle, ovens hidden beneath the tabletops as a stove top sat in the center of the isle. A fridge leaned against the wall off to the side, a sink right next to it, and you watched Eren walk over and wash his hands. You leaned against the kitchen isle as he opened the fridge, different liquids and foods lining the walls and inside of the fridge.

“Do you want eggs, bacon, and toast, or something else?” he asked, and you bit your lip as his back muscles flexed beneath the thin shirt. 

“Can I have you?” you said, covering your mouth with both hands as soon as the words spilled past your lips. Eren froze and peered over his shoulder with wide eyes.

“Could you repeat that?” he asked, and you shook your head. 

The fridge closed, and he walked towards you. You stepped backwards until your back hit the counter, your hands grasping the edge. Eren’s green eyes stared deep into yours as he caged your figure against the counter, his arms on either side of you. Your throat bobbed as you gulped, his proximity sending warning signals shooting throughout your brain. The smell of his cologne and musk invaded your senses, and your legs wobbled. Eren noticed your weak body and picked you up, sitting you against the countertop as he stood between your legs.

“What did you say?” he asked as a hand ran across the top of your bare leg, goosebumps breaking out. 

You shouldn’t have worn shorts. 

The hand stopped on the dip of your waist, tugging your body closer to his. Your lower half pressed against his abs, his growing bulge dangerously close to your clothed opening. Your right hand snaked up his neck and ran through his hair, gripping the back of it as you pulled his head back and leaned in closer to his face. Your breaths mixed as his parted lips waited for yours, his eyes flitting up to yours as he waited for your answers. Your left hand gripped his shoulder, fingers digging into his flesh as it kept the thin strand of rationality intact.

“I still remember the way you eye fucked me yesterday. Do you want me to fulfill your fantasies, baby? Just say the word, and I’ll do whatever you want,” Eren said, his hand on your waist squeezing your flesh as his other hand ghosted the skin of your inner thighs, and you spread your legs wider.

“God, fuck me. Please,” you breathed out, only wanting to feel his lips on yours as he ravished your body from the inside out. The thin thread of rationality snapped, and a flip switched in Eren as he smashed his lips into yours, both of your hands shooting up to wrap around the back of his neck to pull him closer to you. 

His hand on your waist held your back as he leaned forward, his hungry lips moving in a sloppy rhythm against yours. Your own lips clumsily rushed alongside his quick rhythm, not caring how messy it was as all you wanted was to taste him, feel him. You moaned into his mouth as he tightened his grip on your thigh, and the tip of his tongue touched yours before he slipped it inside your mouth. The taste of coffee entered your mouth, and you pulled him closer to you, your ankles locking behind him to keep him trapped against your body. You could feel his bulge pressing against you, and you grinded your body against his, the friction of your clothes sending a burning tingle through your pussy. 

Eren’s tongue prodded around inside your mouth. The flat of his tongue swiped across the roof of your mouth, his piercing rubbing against your hard palette. You shivered from the sensation, hands dropping from his hair to grip his shoulders and tightening on the fabric of his shirt. You tilted your head to the side as his tongue invaded deeper inside your mouth, and your body squirmed from the sensation of his wet tongue tangling with yours. The hand on your thigh reached forward to grab your ass, and he yanked you forward as he grinded against your clothed pussy, and you let out a choked moan that he swallowed with ease. Burning desire pooled in your core, and you grabbed his hair to pull his lips from yours, your teeth catching his bottom lip and tugging it as you stared at him in the eyes, an unspeakable lust spreading between the two of you.

Once your teeth released his lip, he moved into the side of your face and nipped at your earlobe, watching your reaction as you flinched before he trailed kisses down your jaw. As he pressed kisses against your burning skin, you sighed and tilted your head back. He nipped at your skin as he moved down to your neck, and your fingernails dug into his shoulders. He hissed against your neck, and you let out soft whimpers as the sound went straight to your core.

The bell rang as the door opened, and you froze as Eren kept peppering kisses against your neck. 

“Wait, Eren! Someone came in,” you said, grabbing his hair and pulling his head back, detaching his lips from your skin.

He groaned. “It’s just Armin. I told him to pick some things up. He came back early, though,” he said, and his phone vibrated in his pockets. He pulled it out, reading Armin’s message, typed something, and pocketed it. “I bought us some time.”

“Couldn’t he have told me this before I returned?” Armin said to himself before he left the cafe. Once the door shut, Eren went back to kissing your jaw.

“What the hell did you send him?” you asked, and Eren sighed against your skin.

“I told him to pick up more eggs, even though we already have enough. The supermarkets about 30 minutes from here. I bought us at least an hour,” Eren said, and his hands slid underneath your shirt.

You gasped as his hands grabbed your tits, his right one kneading the flesh as his left one pinched your nipple, twirling it between his fingers and tugging on it. “Fuck!” you gasped out, and you tugged your shirt over your head to expose your chest to his eyes, body desperate for his lips to kiss every part of your body. You shouldn’t be doing this. Not with him, and definitely not in a public place. But your sex drive didn’t care. It begged for his body, craved it so much to the point where you wouldn’t be able to function without Eren’s body against yours. 

His lips kissed the tops of your tits, and soft moans spilled from your mouth as he kept massaging your flesh and pinching your nipples. You pushed your chest closer to him, wanting nothing but his lips on your burning skin, and he obliged as he kissed lower until his lips wrapped around one of your perky nipples, taking it between his teeth softly to tug at it. You sucked on your bottom lip to hold in a whimper as pain shot through your chest before your body tingled with pleasure. Eren looked up at you as he took your tit back into his mouth as ran his tongue around your areola. Your body shuddered as his tongue piercing swiped across the slit in your nipple, and he dragged the flat of his tongue over it once more, smirking as you twitched again and bit your lip to hold back moans.

“You’re pretty sensitive here, aren’t you, princess?” he said as he used his fingernail to scrape your nipple to watch your body tremble beneath his touch.

“Don’t just focus there, please,” you begged, your entrance wanting him inside now as it throbbed with each touch of his hands. 

“Would be my pleasure,” he told you.

He trailed soft, wet kisses from your breast down your stomach towards your navel, and he paused for a second, eyes looking up at yours as he tried to gauge your reaction. His cock twitched as you stared at him with lust filled eyes, your tits exposed and chest heaving, lips swollen and saliva creating a shine on your bottom lip. As he placed one more soft kiss on your navel, his hands worked to slip your shorts off of your legs, and you let him as your shorts dropped to the floor next to him, your clothed pussy in his face. His lips pressed against your inner thighs and worked their way towards your hole, and his eyes looked up at you as he drew closer to the part you wanted him to touch the most. 

You covered your mouth with both hands as your body shook with anticipation. His eyes turned hooded as you stared at him, patiently waiting for him to make a mess of you. Eren dropped to his knees in front of you, his face between your legs as he looked at your clothes entrance with so much lust in his eyes that your body shivered. Without a single word, he leaned in close and pressed the flat of his tongue against your panties, lapping a long strip upwards. Your legs jerked when his piercing pressed against your clit, and he repeated the same strokes with his tongue until you could feel your arousal wet your panties with his saliva. He looked up at you, tongue sticking out as he circled the tip around your clit, and you looked back at him through hooded eyes as the feeling of his tongue on you spread through your pussy and made it throb.

He groaned against your soaked panties before he grabbed the waistband and slid them off you, the fabric tickling your thighs as it came off. A deep breath left his lips, his hot breath fanning over your vulva, and you threw your head back, the feeling of the hot air against you doing things to your body that you didn’t know could be done. You wanted him to touch you already.

His tongue swiped across your vulva from the bottom until he paused at your clit. You waited for him to swirl his tongue around your clit, but he pulled off to suck around your hard clit. The softness of his lips pressing against your sensitive skin—your inner thighs, your labia, your vulva—combined with the suction made your mind go crazy. As he sucked on your pussy, his eyes stared into yours and made your legs tremble. Fuck, the sight of his head buried between your thighs was enough to almost send you over the edge already. 

He pulled his lips off of your skin, and you whined, ready to push his face back, but before you could move your hands to his hair to tug him back, the tip of his tongue pressed against your slit, and you sucked in a breath. He let out a sigh as his tongue traced a figure eight over your vulva, and more arousal dripped from your slit as his hot breath and the pressure from his tongue touching you all over made the heat in your lower stomach pool. 

“Fuck, you’re so sexy,” he mumbled against you when he looked up at you and saw your disheveled appearance, eyes teary, lips red and abused, face flushed, and hair stikcing to your sweaty forehead.

At the compliment, your thighs squeezed and trapped his face against you, not that he seemed to complain as he traced your lips with his tongue. Content sighs spilled from your lips as you threw your head back, a hand reaching down to run through Eren’s hair as he tugged your lower half closer to his face. The tip of his tongue prodded at your entrance, teasing you and waiting for your permission, but before you could answer, the door creaked open, the ringing of the bell echoing through the quiet building, and you froze. Eren’s tongue stopped swiping across your slit as he waited for someone to speak. When a few seconds of silence went by, he pulled the folds of your clitoral hood apart to poke at your erect clit, and then a familiar voice came.

“Eren? Are you here? I know we have plenty of eggs! Stop sending me on wild goose chases for no reason,” Armin called out, and you bit your lip to hold back a moan that tickled the back of your throat as Eren’s tongue pressed on your sensitive clit and sent pleasure through your pussy, your mind turning hazy. “Where did he go?” he said to himself, his footsteps echoing as he walked around. 

Your heart rate picked up as the sound of his footsteps came closer, but the ringing of the bell on the door stopped him in his tracks. He greeted someone, and his footsteps retreated. Eren pulled away from your pussy and licked his lips as he looked up at you with hooded eyes.

“Looks like people came in. If you don’t want to get caught, you better keep your voice down, kitten.” He held up two fingers and ran them along your bottom lip. When you opened your mouth, he slipped them inside and pressed the pads of his digits against the flat of your tongue. “Suck on them.”

Without another word, he dipped his head back down in between your trembling legs and ran his tongue up your slit to poke at your clit with the tip of his tongue. Saliva built up in your mouth as you sucked on his fingers, rolling your tongue around them as he ran a digit along the length of your vulva. The rough pad of his finger brushed against your exposed clit, and your body twitched, your lips tightening around his fingers and tongue pressing against the pads of them. He moved his fingers around inside your mouth, pulling them apart and caressing the sides of your tongue as he circled them around your tongue, and you gagged softly as saliva built up and clogged the back of your throat. You swallowed around his fingers, and he pushed them farther back into your throat, pressing the base of your tongue to watch your gag reflex. When you didn’t gag, he trailed the finger at your clit down your wet slit, coated his finger in your arousal, and slipped it inside of you until his knuckle rested flush against your pelvis.

You gasped at the sudden feeling of something entering you, and he let his finger sit inside of your pulsing walls for a few seconds before he curled it and pressed against the top of your walls on the bundle of nerves near your opening. Your hands grabbed the wrist belonging to the fingers in your mouth, and as the pad of Eren’s finger dragged along your sensitive walls, you pushed his fingers deeper into your mouth as you bobbed your head, letting them slip out of your mouth before entering once more to press against the opening of your throat. You moaned as his fingers pressed the erogenous zones inside your mouth, your body tensing as your high started coming towards you. 

The constant teasing of the spots in your mouth and pussy made your body crumble in pleasure underneath Eren’s hands, and he added another finger to your entrance, spreading your hole as he scissored you and continued curling his fingers inside of you. A wet feeling pressed against your entrance, and you threw your head back, Eren’s fingers almost slipping free from your mouth, as his tongue slipped into you as well. As he spread your open with his fingers, his tongue swiped around inside of you, tasting every nook and cranny he could. He pressed the flat of his tongue against the roof of your pussy, right on the hard bundle of nerves near your entrance, and the piercing dug into it, sending even more pleasure shooting through you as he thrusted his fingers inside of you, his tongue curling inside of you to touch the same spot over and over again. You pushed your body against his fingers and face in an attempt to reach your approaching orgasm and more arousal dripped from you and lubricated his fingers and coated his tongue. 

As you tried to get him deeper into your body to bring the burning sensation you craved so desperately, he pulled his tongue out and left you feeling empty inside, though his fingers rested inside still. “Don’t get too impatient,” he said as he stared into your desperate eyes, voice husky, and he sent a slap to your thigh that tipped you over the edge. As the pain from the hit spread through your flesh, pleasure shot straight to your core and spilled the pool of heat in your body. Your lower half tensed as your body shook with your orgasm, the sudden slap just what your body needed and craved.

You whimpered around his fingers, saliva spilling from the corners of your lips as your walls clenched around his fingers. He pumped them inside of you to help you ride out your orgasm, and you twitched from over stimulation as you came down from your high. His fingers slipped out of your pussy with a wet sound, and you let out shallow breaths around the fingers in your mouth. When your chest stopped heaving up and down, Eren’s fingers slipped out of your mouth, a string of saliva connecting the pads of his digits to your tongue, and you broke it as your tongue peeked out to swipe across your bottom lip, still not satisfied. You threaded your fingers through his black locks, fisting his hair as you tugged at the strands to gain his attention. When he peered up at you, you noticed the painful bulge in his lower half, and memories of how large he was down there resurfaced and made your mouth water. 

“I want your cock in me now,” you said in a seductive tone as your eyes focused on Eren’s clothed erection. He groaned against your pussy, the vibrations from the sound almost sending you over the edge once more from overstimulation, and he stood up, undoing the apron and throwing it off to the side before he undid his pants.

Your eyes turned hooded with lust as he pulled his pulsing cock out, your dripping pussy ready for it to enter and abuse your walls. He slipped a condom on as you leaned back and opened your legs to give him more access to your entrance, and he bit his lip, a strand of hair falling into his face as his eyes focused on your clenching hole. The tip of his dick ran up and down your slit, and you groaned, wanting him inside already. 

“Fuck me…” you begged, voice breathy, and he cursed. The head of his cock prodded against your hole, and you sucked in a breath as your walls spread when he pushed inside. 

A sudden loud noise sounded from outside. Eren froze, and your body jerked as the noise echoed in the room.

You jumped up and looked around your room to see darkness outside, voices from outside following the thud that awoke you, and as your eyes adjusted to the change of scenery, you cursed at yourself for having a sex dream as an adult—about a friend, nonetheless. With a sigh, you rolled your eyes and moved your legs, cringing as you felt a wetness between them. The blankets protecting your lower half from the cold night air disappeared as you yanked them off and stared at your booty shorts with a wet patch on them.

“Are you a horny teenage boy, Y/N?” you told yourself as you reached a hand down to prod at the wetness on your clothing, biting your lip to catch a moan when a shiver of pleasure ran up your spine. “Fuck…”

That light, tentative touch of yours worsened the already burning fire of lust inside of you the sex dream about Eren ignited, and your body begged you for more as your legs squeezed together, catching your hand between your thighs and trapping it against your shorts. The voices you had heard before faded, and you remembered hearing them say they were going out to a club, and the voice of lust inside your head whispered for you to do it, to let yourself go to the feeling of pleasure that your body missed. The other voice, the one of reason, warned you not to, lest you wake other unsuspecting dorm goers trying to catch up on missed sleep, but the lust filled voice overpowered its weak one, and you rushed to grab a towel to lay on your bed.

Once the gray towel laid against your black sheets, you locked the door, knowing Jayden wouldn’t be coming back until tomorrow afternoon, and laid on your back, placing a pillow beneath the blanket under your back. Your hands ran down your sides, ghosting over your t-shirt covered skin and sending a slight tingling down to your core before you reached the waistband of your shorts. In one motion, you pulled them down your legs and shivered when cold air hit your dripping wet pussy. A shaky breath left your lips, and your cold right hand ran down your stomach before your pointer finger and middle finger slid down your outer labia to pull them apart. Your pussy clenched, and you tugged your bottom lip between your teeth as you rutted your hips into the air. God, the lust you felt took over your full body and made the slightest touches burn and send pleasure throughout your whole body.

To keep moans from escaping your mouth, you grabbed the hem of your t-shirt and shoved it into your mouth, exposing your tits to the cold air. Your nipples perked up and begged for your fingers to grip them in a tight grip until they burned in pleasure, and you crumbled to the temptation. Your fingers traced up your labia before your middle finger rubbed your wet slit, spreading your slick across your vulva as your left hand slithered up your chest to latch onto your tit. You took your hard nipple between your thumb and pointer finger and pinched it, twisting it and rolling it around in between your digits as the nail of your middle finger scraped across your clit. Your legs spasmed from the sudden pleasure, and you squeezed your eyes shut to keep the moan from getting muffled in your shirt stuffed into your mouth, shoving your head back onto the pillow.

Your left hand stopped pinching your nipple to knead your tit in your palm, and you circled your finger around your clit, then added your pointer finger as you separated the two fingers to draw down your inner labia to spread more slick around your pussy. Your pussy clenched as your fingers danced dangerously close to it, but you ignored it as you dragged your slicked fingers back up to your clit to slide them up and down your clitoral hood. The t-shirt in your mouth caught a series of breathy pants leaving your lips as you sped up the pace of your fingers and sent a delicious tingle shaking your legs. You rolled your hard nipple between your fingers with your left hand, squeezing and tugging at it as you bucked your hips.

As much as you wanted to orgasm with just your fingers on your clit, you knew your body needed more, begged for more. The hand on your clit pushed downwards, rubbing against the slickness of your slit, and you held in a whimper as your hole clenched around nothing, waiting for your fingers to slip inside. Your middle finger ran along your slit and coated it in your arousal, and your teeth tightened around your shirt as you pushed your finger inside. You blew out a deep sigh through your nose as your digit sank in until your knuckle prodded against your lips. 

The hand on your tit slid down your body, ghosting over your skin and sending goosebumps shooting up all over your body, and you closed your eyes as your left hand reached your thighs. Your hand massaged the flesh of your inner thighs and pushed them apart to give your right hand more access to your wet pussy. Your walls clenched around your middle finger as you kneaded your inner thighs, and you squeezed your eyes as you moved your digit inside of you. It slid out of your tight walls before sliding back in, and you added another finger before long to press against more of your insides. 

You curled your fingers inside of you in a ‘come hither’ motion, scratching against the hardened roof of your walls, and your mouth dropped open. The shirt fell from your mouth as you let out a silent moan. Your left hand grabbed the edge of your shirt to shove it back into your mouth to muffle any future noises, and your teeth bit down on the fabric as you curled your fingers once more, prodding against your warm walls and bringing more pleasure shooting throughout your body. 

You continued to shove your fingers inside of you, pressing them deep until your knuckles pressed against your pubic bone, and curled them. Shivers wracked your body, and you scissored your fingers to spread yourself more, a wet sound meeting your ears from your slick. The pool of heat in your lower half built up as you fingered yourself, but it plateaued after a while, your orgasm far off.

It wasn’t enough.

You pulled your fingers out of your pussy with a squelching sound and brought them back up to circled around your clit for a few moments. With your right hand still rubbing your clit, stopping every so often to dip down into the slickness covering your pussy to spread it around more before continuing, you reached over to the nightstand with your left hand that you detached from your tit. You yanked open the middle drawer, fumbling around inside it until you felt something long and wide in it and pulled it out. The quiet vibrating dildo Jayden had bought you as an 18th birthday present joke sat in your hand, and though you had been too awkward to use a vibrator from your friend, your aching body called for desperate measures.

You stopped rubbing your clit to spread open your lips as your left hand guided the head of the dildo towards your vagina. After you ran the tip up and down your slit to coat it in your slick, you sucked in a deep breath through your nose as you pushed it into your entrance. Your walls stretched around the girth of the toy, a stinging pain spreading through your lower half. To relax, you released the breath you were holding and pushed the dildo deeper inside. You wiggled it around to get it to slide in, and you arched your back, head sinking into the pillow as the dildo thrusted inside of you, pressing a spot deep inside of you that made you tingle all over and roll your eyes back into your head. A small hint of pain mingled with the pleasure you felt, but the delicious burning inside you overpowered it and invaded all of your senses.

Your pussy spread around the dildo, and you took deep breaths to adjust to its size, which was much larger than your fingers were. When your walls got used to it, you slowly thrusted it inside you, your insides grabbing onto it and holding it tight as it slid out before it pushed back in. The slow movements soon sped up, hitting deeper into you, and when one hard, deep thrust pressed against a bundle of nerves deep inside, your jaw clenched as immense tingling pleasure spread throughout your lower half.

“Fuck…” you gasped around your shirt, your toes curling and legs trembling. The dildo abused inside of you as you shoved it inside at a rapid, sloppy pace, desperate for a release that didn’t want to come.

It still wasn’t big enough. Though it had been a long time since you had sex with Eren, your body still remembered how he felt inside you. How large he was and how deep he penetrated you. The measly sex toy didn’t even come close to how good you felt when Eren made a mess of you. 

You flipped onto your knees, your face stuffed into the pillow as you shoved the dildo into you in doggy style. Your back arched, pressing your chest against your mattress as you threw your head back, the toy sliding even deeper. A finger clumsily rubbed your clit as you fucked yourself with the dildo, legs shaking and hips jerking as short bursts of pleasure burned in your core. Your exposed tits from your shirt still in your mouth rubbed against the towell, the friction bringing a warm tingling to your nipples that increased the heat pool in your lower half. You rocked your hips backwards, meeting each thrust of the toy into your body as it hit the spots you desperately needed. 

As you kept going, almost to your high, your phone on the nightstand rang, but the burning in your lower half took precedent as you pushed the dildo deeper into your pussy, your walls madly clenching around it as it abused your fleshy insides. The ringing stopped after a few seconds, but a beep sounded instead, and you groaned in irritation when you remembered you had left voicemail on. You readied to shove your face deeper into your pillow, but a familiar voice made you stop as the person cleared their throat and hummed.

“Uh, hey. Sorry for the sudden call,” Eren’s voice came from the other side, the static from the phone making it deeper. Your pussy throbbed around the dildo as his voice tingled the insides of your ears, and you squeezed your eyes shut, the burning in your lower stomach growing. “Just wanted to make sure you got back home safe after you left the cafe. Jay said not to worry, but I felt like calling you.” God, he was being so considerate of you, but here you were, masturbating to the thought of him. Despite your conscious telling you to stop, the sound of his voice only served to turn you on and push you further to the edge, and you kept pushing the dildo inside of you as your fingers rubbed your clit. “Sorry if I’m inconveniencing you. I hope you’re all right. Good night, baby.”

Eren took that name from his mouth and placed it onto your tongue like an ecstasy pill, not caring what it would do to your body, and you hated how much you loved it. A whine left your lips, your pillow muffling most of the sound, as the simple pet name sent your over the edge, your body tensing before a burning wave of pleasure spread throughout your lower body. Your hips bucked down to press against your mattress, shaking legs barely holding your body up, and you felt your slickness drip down your pussy. The dildo continued moving in and out of you while you rode out your orgasm, the fingers rubbing your clit turning sporadic, and a dull aching sensation replaced the pleasure as your orgasm subsided. From how wet you were, you knew you could keep going, but the voice of reason inside your head stopped you from doing any more.

You pulled the dildo out of your pussy, cringing from the overstimulation as your walls tightened around it to keep it inside. The wet sound as it popped out reminded you of what you just did, and the phone call a minute ago from Eren brought a wave of guilt and embarrassment crashing down on your body. As you cleaned yourself up in your post-nut clarity filled with shame, you cursed yourself for being so pent up that you resorted to having a sex dream about Eren and masturbating thanks to it. 

The bed sank when you flopped onto it in clean clothes, the towel long gone and shoved into the clothing hamper to hide your shame, and your eyes focused on the little bumps on your ceiling. You tried counting them to get your mind off of things, but when you reached thirty five, everything came back crashing onto you. Your arm covered your eyes as you released a deep sigh.

You were falling for Eren. Hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was my first time writing a masturbation scene im- i hope it was good enough KSAJDJLDKJDSNA   
> also, i had wanted to italicize the sex dream to make it apparent that it was a dream, but my friend said i should destroy you guys' dreams and make it appear real🏃🏃🏃


	5. too late

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You could feel the pressure when she started coming home less

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so much for all the supportive comments!❤️❤️❤️ i'm hopefully getting computer glasses soon, so i should be able to make more consistent updates without going to sleep for 12 hours because my eyes hurt and not writing for 3 days straight... also, don't be afraid to give me constructive criticism so i can give you guys the best i can because i don't edit anything and post right after i finish writing—as you can tell with my dialogue heavy writing this time💔

Every second of the day, Eren’s face and voice seemed to invade your mind and take over. It would take another person snapping their fingers in front of your face for you to realize how spaced out you were from thinking about the man who even invaded your dreams. The images of his body grinding against yours as he ran his lips down your burning skin continued to resurface in your mind whenever you closed your eyes, and the eyebags resting beneath your eyes told of how many restless nights you had had thanks to him. After the first one, where you masturbated and mentally beat yourself up for doing it, they kept coming back to torment you and remind you of how much you lusted after Eren.

Today wasn’t any different than the past few days. You sat in your computer science class, eyes staring straight ahead at the ticking clock as your professor droned on about something your ears didn’t pick up. Instead, your mind focused on an imaginary scenario of you walking down the halls of the university, only for Eren to grab you, pull you into an empty classroom, and push you against the wall. You propped your head against your hand, and the pen resting between your pointer finger and thumb raised and lowered as you played with it, the images of Eren kissing your neck as he grinded against your body on the wall burning into your memory and making you desperate for them to come true. In your imaginary scene, Eren dropped to his knees and pulled down your pants to lick at your clothed entrance. He pulled your underwear away from your sopping pussy, tongue sticking out to lap up your juices, but before the tip of his tongue could touch your skin, a voice startled you out of your daydream.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” a voice asked, and you jumped in your seat, turning your head to see your classmate staring at you with worry swimming in his hazel eyes, eyebrows pinching the skin between them. “You’ve been spacing out all lecture.”

You blinked and shook your head to rid yourself of your thoughts, watching as the other students packed their bags and left the classroom. “Ah, sorry, Connie. Just… had some things on my mind,” you told him, but his eyes pierced you, unwavering even after you assured him.

“You’re not taking on too much, are you? It’s not like you to space out like this. If something happened, you could always talk to me if you need to. I’ll listen to you,” he said, and you gave him a soft smile.

“Thanks for the offer, Connie, but it’s fine. It’s something I need to resolve on my own.”  _ And fast. _ The notebook in front of you, usually filled to the brim with notes, laid blank, desperate for the touch from your pencil. 

“I’ll give you my notes, though they may not be as good as your usual ones,” Connie said, and you sighed.

“If you wouldn’t mind.” He shook his head to rid you of your worries, and you gave him a sympathetic smile. “Sorry about this. I’ll try to pay attention in the next class.”

“It’s fine. I hope you’re feeling better by next class,” he said, and you thanked him as you packed up your items.

You checked the time, happy when it read 12:15. Lunch time. Your next class didn’t start for two hours, and your stomach could use those two hours to fill up on much needed sustenance. As you stood up, slinging your bag over your shoulder, Connie cleared his throat.

“Hey, Y/N?”

“Yes?” you asked, turning to him and tilting your head to the side.

His mouth opened and closed for a few seconds, eyes glued to your face. After a few seconds of you standing there, he shook his head. “Ah, sorry. It’s nothing. See you next class.” He waved at you, and you furrowed your eyebrows at him before waving back and walking towards the door. When you turned back for one quick glance at Connie, you watched him yank his hood over his buzz cut and pull the strings taught, the hood shrinking to cover his face before he hit his head on the table. “Stupid, stupid, stupid. It’s not that hard to ask her to eat lunch with you. Why the fuck did you freeze up?! God, I hate you, you spineless bastard.”

“Are you leaving soon, Connie?” you called out, worried for the man’s head as he kept smacking his forehead into the table.

He shot up at your voice and pulled the hood off his face, ears burning red. “Uh… yeah. I just gotta check something first. Bye!” He bent over to his bag, rustling around inside it, and you soon left afterwards, face morphed into confusion at his actions, but as your stomach let out a low groan, you forgot your worries over Connie and walked towards the nearest exit to waste your money on some noodles from a nearby ramen shop your campus graciously gifted you and your fellow students.

You walked down the halls, mind deciding to wander once more to your unfinished daydream about Eren, and his tongue inched closer to your slit before a hand on your shoulder made your body jolt and heart rate pick up, the notebook in your arms almost falling to the ground had the person next to you not grabbed it. The notebook made it back into your arms as you stared at Eren’s wide eyes, body tense and the whites of your eyes showing.

“Woah, there, princess,” he held up his hands and backed up a bit as you sighed and relaxed. “I didn’t expect you to jump that much. Am I really that scary?” he asked. “Maybe I should audition for a haunted house or a horror movie?”

You sighed as your heart calmed down. “I was daydreaming. Thanks for startling me out of it,” you said, and he shoved his hands into his pockets, walking beside you as you started forward.

“Ooh? What was it a daydream about? Was I perhaps in it?” he said, and you gave him the stink eye. You wouldn’t tell him the truth that  _ yes _ , he was in it, and the two of you were getting it on in a random classroom.

“Why would I daydream about you?”

“Because I’m amazing, darling.”

“Yeah, if that’s what you think,” you said, taking a turn and leaving him scrambling after you down the halls. 

“Well, if it wasn’t me, then who was it?” he asked, and you rolled your eyes.

“You sure are curious about my thoughts. There’s  _ many _ people it could be about. Like Gojo-sensei. Ooh, or Usui, though as an adult, of course. Maybe Sebastian too. The list goes on,” you told him, pushing open the door to the university and flinching when a gust of cool wind hit your skin. Eren followed out after you, his long legs keeping up with your fast pace as you tried to rush to the ramen shop before too many other hungry college students flooded it and left no seats available for you. 

“So… where are you going in such a rush?” he asked, and you sighed.

“It’s lunch time. Where do you  _ think _ I’m going?” you replied, ignoring him as he shoved his hands inside his pockets and kicked a pebble on the ground, shoulders hunching up and dropping back down.

“Oh, I don’t know. You could be going to the chicken place. Or the Italian place. There’s McDonalds too. A Chinese restaurant too. Or the ramen shop.” He stopped talking and stepped in front of you. You halted and tried to get around him, your hungry stomach begging for food, but he moved in your way every time you tried to maneuver past him. “I’m asking  _ which _ one you’re going to, angel.”

“And why, may I ask, is that so important to you?” you asked, crossing your arms over chest and giving him an irritated stare to get him to move. You ignored the butterflies in your stomach as the new pet name slipped from his lips.

“So that I can join you,” he replied, and you scoffed.

“You want to eat lunch with me?” You quirked an eyebrow at him, and he nodded his head. “Then just say that! Don’t stall me.” You pushed past him and made your way towards the shop. When he didn’t follow after you, you looked over your shoulder at his still figure. “I’m getting ramen, so either come with me or go somewhere else.”

“I missed your cute tsundere attitude,” he said, and like an excited puppy, he smiled at you and jogged up to you. You could practically see his invisible dog ears perked up and his tail wagging as he walked next to you. As you crossed the street to the food section of the city, Eren walked on the sidewalk closer to the street while you walked on the inside. If you moved in front of him to let someone walk past you, he held onto your arm to keep you from falling, and the small touch from his large, warm hand against your cold skin reminded you of the thoughts you had been thinking about him lately, and guilt burned in your stomach. 

The sign of the ramen shop peered out from a corner, and you sped up towards it, a relieved sigh leaving you when you noticed several empty seats. You reached out to grab the door, but Eren’s hand encircled the door handle and pulled it open before you could. Your eyes flitted up to stare at his figure towering over you.

“Ladies first,” he said, and you thanked him before entering. 

Wooden tables and chairs lined the wall as several stools stood in front of an island, a chef cooking behind it and handing out ramen bowls to those sitting near him. A waitress greeted you and Eren, to which you greeted her back, and your eyes watched as she moved between tables with ramen bowls in her hands that disappeared within a few seconds as she placed them on tables. The warm smell of broth floated through the air and enticed you to step further inside and towards an empty seat, and Eren settled into the seat in front of you. He fiddled with the button on the table, fingers dangerously close to hitting the button that would send the waitress over to your table, and you grabbed the menu to scan the options. 

When you closed the menu, he looked up at you. “Are you ready to order?”

You nodded. “Let me press the button though,” you said, reaching out to grab it from him, but he pulled it back.

“Too late,” he said, pressing it in front of your eyes and watching as your jaw dropped in disbelief.

“You ass!” 

“Thank you. I’ve been working out lately. I’m glad you noticed,” he said with a wink, and you rolled your eyes, ready to kick him when a different waitress than you saw before walked up to you two. She pulled out a notepad from her apron and clicked a pen in her hand.

“What can I get for you two?” she asked, eyes flitting between you and Eren.

“Tonkotsu ramen,” Eren said. “You?” He pointed towards you.

“Black pepper ramen with beef, please,” you said, handing her the menu once she finished writing.

Instead of leaving immediately, she stood around for a second before clearing her throat. “I’m glad you finally came back, Eren. I was worried you grew tired of this place. Father’s happy to see you,” she said, and he smiled at her, looking over at the chef to wave at him, to which the chef nodded in return.

“I’ve been busy. I’ll make sure to drag the guys along with me next time I come, so make sure you prepare a big table, Yuki,” Eren said, and she nodded with a shy smile.

She turned to leave, but she whipped back around. “Oh, and can you tell Izuki to call once in a while? Auntie is getting worried about how he’s faring.”

“I’ll make sure to talk to him about it. He’s fine at the moment, though, so you don’t have to worry about him. If he starts getting worse, I’ll text you if I can’t make him call, okay?” he assured her, and she thanked him before running off to slip behind curtains.

“Who-?” you started.

“Izuki’s cousin,” Eren told you, and you nodded, eyes trailing after where she disappeared.

“Did the two of you-”

“Oh, God, no! She’s 16. I’m not trying to catch a case,” he said, and you sighed in relief, silence spreading between you two.

What the hell was wrong with you? You got jealous over a 16 year old girl and felt relieved when there wasn’t anything going on. God, you needed to get over your crush on Eren fast.

You cleared your throat to disrupt the silence between the two of you, but before you could open your mouth, the door to the ramen shop opened, several voices talking at once and grabbing your attention. Your eyes spotted Connie with a group of his friends, and he made eye contact with you, his body freezing.

“Come on, Connie! Cheer up. You at least  _ tried _ to shoot your shot. Too bad you’re a love virgin, amiright?” a friend said, nudging Connie in the shoulder and chuckling with the other friends.

“Better luck next time. Let’s flirt with Emiko and forget about that other girl for now,” another friend said, but Connie didn’t answer.

Instead, he turned away in an instant, breaking the long, silent eye contact between you two, and corralled his friends out, much to their protests. You were left tilting your head in confusion. Eren, noticing your face, turned around in his seat, but Connie and his friends had disappeared.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, and you shook your head.

“Just thought I noticed someone familiar,” you said, shifting in your seat. “Anyways, why did you want to eat lunch with me?”

Eren leaned back in his seat, and he nodded to the waitress as she brought over your food. “Thanks, Emiko.” She bowed and walked off after leaving the steaming bowls of ramen in front of you. “Do I need a reason to want to eat with you?”

“You could have eaten with anyone else, so why me?” you asked, and he broke his chopsticks apart and swirled the noodles around in his bowl.

“Cause I felt like it? I ran into you first, and it had been a hot minute since we last talked, so I wanted to chat with you,” he said, shoveling noodles into his mouth after blowing on them.

“Uh-huh,” you said, not believing a word as you broke apart your chopsticks and mixed the pepper floating in the broth around with the noodles.

Eren swallowed and pointed his chopsticks at you. “I do have ulterior motives, though,” he said, and you paused, your hand holding the chopsticks to place steaming noodles in your mouth stopping inches away from your lips.

“What do you mean?”

He leaned forward and placed his elbows on the table, and you took the chance to eat your noodles, humming as the tender meat broke apart in your mouth atop its bed of soft noodles, the flavor of garlic and pepper mixing with the meat and caressing your tastebuds. Your stomach thanked you as it took in the delicious food. Eren smiled at your satisfied expression and watched you eat more. After a few moments of watching you eat, he cleared his throat.

“Well, I moved into an apartment this week, and I was going to have a little house warming party with a small group of people tonight. I was wondering if you’d be willing to come as well,” he said, and you chewed the food in your mouth, gulping and staring at him. He sighed at your emotionless face and poked at his ramen with his chopsticks. “Chase will be there.”

“Consider me there, then,” you said in a chipper voice.

“Why does it take my mentioning Chase for you to come? You barely even talk to the guy!” he said, and you shrugged.

“He seems cool. I can talk to him more and get to know him,” you said.

“I’m cool too, aren’t I?” he asked, and you gave him an incredulous look. “Okay, you don’t need to hurt me like that, princess.” 

You finished up your noodles, slurping up your broth to make a show of ignoring him, and he shook his head.

“You pain me,” he said, and you smiled at him.

“Good.” You set down the ramen bowl, and he pressed the button once more, asking Emiko for the check when she came over.

“You know, I’ll break down that tsundere exterior of yours one day. I know you love me,” he told you, and you scrunched up your face.

“No, I don’t think I do,” you said.

“It’s all over your face. You think I’m sexy,” he said, pointing at you, and you scoffed, grabbing his finger and pulling his hand down to the table.

“Yeah, right. I’m pretty sure that’s your ego seeing what it wants to see,” you said, and he sighed, hanging his head, though he extended his hand and retracted it once Emiko came over and handed him the bill.

“Damn, you really hit me there. Can’t say you’re wrong, though. But don’t worry. I’ll get you to admit the truth one day,” he said, opening the notebook and slipping his credit card in for Emiko. Once she disappeared, he looked back at you and tilted his head to the side, eyes studying for face for a few seconds. “Anyways, I hope to see you tonight.” He stood up, and Emiko came back with a receipt and handed it to him with his credit card. He thanked her as she walked off. “I’ll text you the address, so I hope you’ll show up,” he said to you and pulled out his phone. 

“I’ll have to see if Gojo-sensei will let me,” you said, and he chuckled.

“Well, I’ll just have to hope he’ll let me have some of your time tonight, then,” he said, tapping on his phone and hitting send. “See you later, baby.” He winked at you.

Your phone dinged with a text, and as you pulled it out to check it, Eren left the restaurant, the bell ringing behind him. As your eyes scanned over the address, your heart sped up. To say you were excited was an understatement.

You lied.

As you stood outside the black door of his apartment, the long hallways of the building’s floor spread out in both directions as a keypad stared you in the face, and you wanted to go home already. When Eren mentioned he bought a new apartment, you hadn’t expected a nice one in a building with tight end security and  _ key pads on the doors. _ How a college student managed to afford an apartment in this place astounded you. 

A shaky hand reached up, fingers curled into a loose fist, and you readied your heart as you moved your hand to knock against the wood door, phone in your other hand while you checked the address. Before your knuckles could graze the black door, it opened to reveal Eren’s chest, a tight black shirt hugging his torso and a wide smile donning his tan face when your eyes trailed up to his green eyes. You blinked, eyes wide as you stared at him.

“Hi,” he said, chest heaving and hair messy as his green eyes twinkled at your figure.

“Uh… hi,” you responded as you lowered your hand and pocketed your phone. 

“Come inside.” He stepped out of the doorway and motioned for you to enter, to which you nodded at him and entered a short hallway, two doors on either side of you. “Oh, you can leave your jacket and shoes in the closet to your right, if you’d like,” Eren told you, opening a door to reveal a rack of hangers against the back wall, two shoe shelves lining the sides and waiting for you to put your shoes away. “Bathroom’s on the left.”

Once you slipped your shoes off and put them on a shelf, hanging your jacket on a random hanger, you stepped out and searched your eyes around the apartment. Modern white walls surrounded you and drew your attention towards the large black L-shaped couch wedged into the far wall with a coffee table sitting in front of it, a TV remote balancing on the edge and the large flat screen TV resting on a wooden drawer. A cutout wall behind the couch led into the kitchen, and a wooden table peeked out from an archway between the cutout wall and another room with its door closed. 

Eren walked through the archway towards the kitchen and opened the fridge near the cutout wall, pulling out two water bottles. As you walked over to the wooden table in the middle of the room, he slid a water bottle over to you as he screwed the top of his off to take a quick swig. You thanked him as you sat down and twisted the cap off and brought it up to your lips. His eyes bore into you as you tilted your head back to gulp down a few mouthfuls of cool water, your throat bobbing.

“You came pretty early,” he said, and you looked at him from your peripherals. “Did you miss me so much that you came twenty minutes early?” 

When he smirked at you, your eyes rolled back in your head, though your ears burned red. “I wasn’t sure if I got the right address. I didn’t want to show up late because I went to the wrong place first,” you told him, and he chuckled, setting his water bottle down and leaning against the table. 

“Are you sure it wasn’t because you missed seeing my sexy face? You can’t lie to me. I know you missed me,” he said, and you lightly flicked his forehead. He flinched and rubbed the spot you hit. “Damn, you didn’t have to reject me like that. I’m hurt, babes.”

“Shit, I was hoping that would fix your brain damage. Seems I need to hit you harder,” you said, raising your hand once more as your thumb pulled your middle finger towards your palm.

“Okay, okay! I’m kidding. Let a guy dream though,” he told you, and you shrugged, taking another gulp of cool water.

“I don’t want your ego getting too big now,” you said, and he shook his head with a sigh.

“Humor me at least once please.”

You scrunched your face up at him and hummed. “I’ll think about it.”

His mouth opened, words ready to spill from his lips, when a knock on the door interrupted him. He sighed and hung his head as he pushed off of the table and walked towards the door. Once he disappeared down the short hallway, the door creaked open.

“I wasn’t expecting you for another ten minutes,” Eren said to the person on the other side.

“My warning bells were ringing, so I came as fast as I could,” a voice said, and you strained your ears to try to pick up their voice to remember who it could be.

Footsteps padded back towards you as the door clicked shut, and 

“Don’t just open the door without checking who’s there!” you said as you turned around to look at Eren.

“Relax. It’s just Chase!” he replied.

“What if it wasn’t and you got shanked?” you asked, and he sighed.

“Have you always had a hyperactive imagination?” 

“What the hell is going on?” Chase said as he appeared from the hallway with a grocery bag in his hand. He stopped in his tracks when his eyes latched onto your figure. “Oh, hi, Y/N.” He offered you a soft wave, and once you returned it, he grabbed Eren’s collar and tugged him down. “Were you trying any funny business here, Eren?” he asked, hot breaths hitting the shell of Eren’s ear.

“No, sir. I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” he replied with a raised hand, and Chase released his shirt collar. 

“Mhm…” Chase hummed, not believing his words. “Anyways, I came early to help you make food so you don’t burn your apartment down.”

Eren scoffed. “Okay, that was  _ one _ time! And I was drunk! Blame Izuki for telling me to scramble eggs when I just came home from a party.”

“Don’t blame it on Izuki.”

“You’re not even cooking anything, so it’s not like I’d start a fire,” Eren mumbled to himself, and Chase glared at him.

Eren sighed and plopped into a chair adjacent to yours as Chase placed the grocery bags on the countertops between the stove and sink. Your eyes trailed after Chase as he washed his hands and pulled out avocados and tomatoes along with several other ingredients. Chase noticed your eyes boring into his back, and he turned around.

“Do you want to help, Y/N?” he asked.

You shook your hands in front of your body. “I can’t cook or bake that well.”

“Then should I teach you?” Eren said, leaning in close to you and snaking a hand across the back of your chair. 

You tilted your head to the side as a smirk pulled at your lips. “I think I can manage without your help,” you said, touching his forehead with your pointer finger and pushing his head back. 

“See what I have to deal with, Chase?” Eren complained to Chase, who busied himself with slicing several avocados and mashing them with other ingredients.

“Well, if you’d stop flirting and actually helped, maybe you wouldn’t have to deal with it. Get off your ass and do something like cut those tomatoes,” Chase replied without peering over his shoulder at Eren’s pouting figure.

“I can try to help too, if you wouldn’t mind,” you said, and Chase hummed.

“You can dice the tomatoes then instead of Eren. I’ll make him finish this while I start on the salsa with you,” he said.

You nodded as you walked over to the tomatoes he had placed on a cutting board, a knife neatly

“Be happy I have all necessary tools for you to use. What would you do if I didn’t have knives for you to use?” Eren said, and Chase shot him a look.

“I’d have bought you some, dipshit. You’ve been in here for almost a week, so if you didn’t have anything, I’d be worried for you,” Chase said as he shoved the bowl of half-finished guacamole into Eren’s arms and walked over to you to pull out a bowl. While Chase busied himself with putting ingredients inside the bowl, Eren placed his bowl next to you and stood behind you as you held the knife in your hand.

“Make sure you keep a firm grip on the knife,” Eren said as he placed his hand over yours, and you stared up at him with an incredulous look.

“I know how to use a knife, Eren,” you told him, and he sighed and backed off.

“Way to ruin our little  _ Ghost _ moment,” he joked, and you rolled your eyes.

“This isn’t pottery.”

“Eren, stop bugging her! Go be productive and finish the guac!” Chase yelled at him, and Eren cursed and grabbed his neglected bowl next to you without another word.

Once he went away to finish the work Chase gave him, you set to work dicing the tomatoes, proud of yourself for not cutting your fingers. All those nights spent watching random Food Network shows instead of sleeping came in handy. 

Eren sighed. “Okay, but why salsa and guac?” he asked as he finished mixing the guacamole and sat it down on the table. 

“Because George and Yasmine love this shit, and it’s the only way I can keep them from wreaking havoc in your apartment,” Chase replied as he took your sliced tomatoes and put them in the ingredients bowl. 

“How did you know I invited them?”

“They told me because they knew I’d come too. You seem to forget that I talk to all the people you do as well,” he said and mixed the salsa together. “Anyways, salsa and guacamole is good, and it’s better than the shit they’d bring.”

“Hey! Don’t go hating on Cheetos and Takis like that!” Eren said, pointing a finger at Chase, who rolled his eyes and swatted Eren’s hand away.

The doorbell rang then, and Eren gave Chase a fake smile before he turned around and walked to the door. Several voices came from the hallway, and you turned around to see a group of six people walking in, Eren in tow behind them. A guy in the front carried a case of beer in his hands while a girl next to him carried grocery bags of junk food.

“Let’s get this party started!” the guy said, raising his hands above his head while the other people cheered.

“Will, it’s literally 8 pm,” Eren said, and the guy turned to him.

“So? Time to drink till we drop!” Will walked towards the living room and sat the case down on the coffee table as the other people walked over to the couch and plopped down, their bodies sinking into the soft cushions.

“Nice place you got here, Eren,” a girl said, and you recognized her as Yasmine from the cafe, her black hair cascading over her shoulder as her jade eyes looked around the apartment.

“I know you just wanted to come here to drink and play. Don’t flatter me,” he replied, and she giggled.

“You know me too well! I’m still expecting you to make my coffee tomorrow, okay?” she said, and he nodded with a quick roll of his eyes. 

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll give my valued customer what they want.” He turned away as Will opened the beer case and handed it out to the others. His figure approached you and Chase, and he plopped into a chair at the table. Chase moved some of the guacamole and salsa into two smaller bowls, a big bowl of chips next to them, and he moved them into the living room.

“Ooh! Look, George! Salsa and guac. Thank you, Chase! I love you,” Yasmine said, blowing kisses at Chase, who swatted the air kisses away and retreated back into the kitchen to sit down across from Eren after dragging the other bowls over to the table. You plopped down into a chair between the two of them and grab a chip to scoop up some salsa.

“We should play Would You Rather and Truth or Dare!” someone said, and the others agreed.

“Hey! Don’t get too loud. The walls are pretty thick, but if you’re super loud, the neighbors will hear muffled noises,” Eren called out as he peered through the cutout in the wall leading to the living room. They didn’t respond, and he sighed. “They’re not going to listen.” 

“Your fault for inviting them,” Chase said, tossing a chip into his mouth.

“Okay, so, Janet, would you rather be whipped or stepped on?” a girl said.

“What the  _ fuck _ ?!” Eren whipped his head around to stare at them, and they looked over their shoulders at him.

“What? We’re playing Would You Rather. Do you wanna join us?” Will asked, and the chair screeched as Eren stood up and walked over to them.

“Give me a damn beer and play your shitty game,” he said, snatching a bottle from the man’s hand and stomping back to you and Chase to plop into the chair. The cap popped off, and he took a swig.

“So... Janet?” Yasmine asked, and the girl hummed in thought.

“Damn, that’s hard. I think I’d like to be whipped though because of the sound. There’s something hot about the sound of a whip hitting skin,” she replied, and the other people ooh’ed and called her dirty in a joking tone as she giggled.

“This was a mistake,” Eren said with a sigh as he dragged a hand down his face and gulped down more beer.

“Once again, your fault for inviting them,” Chase said, and Eren glared at him.

You cleared your throat to grab their attention. “So how’d you afford a place like this,” you asked Eren, circling your finger around the top of your half-finished water bottle.

“My sugar daddy helped pay for it,” he told you as he swirled the beer around in the bottle, and you looked at him. “I sent him a lot of toe pics, and he gave me enough money to pay for six months rent here.”

“Are you being serious?”

Eren chuckled. “No. I don’t have a sugar daddy I send feet pics to. I didn’t pay for this apartment, though.” He took a sip and sighed in relief. “Chase’s dad actually paid for it, and he actually wanted to give me a nicer apartment, so I guess you  _ could  _ say he’s my sugar daddy.”

“Don’t call my dad your sugar daddy,” Chase said with irritation, and Eren pouted at him.

“But it’s the truth! Hell, I’d suck your dad off if I could as payment for all this,” Eren said, and Chase’s face contorted into disgust as he took a swig of his drink. 

“God, you’re disgusting.”

“Not my fault your dad is hot and nice as fuck,” Eren said, poiting at Chase, who grabbed his finger and bent it backwards. Eren winced and grabbed Chase’s wrist. “Okay! I won’t talk about giving your dad the sloppy toppy! It was a joke! It was a joke!.”

“Y/N, it’s best if you don’t associate with this guy too much. You might lose brain cells,” Chase told you, and you nodded as you took a chip and dipped it into the salsa.

“Don’t listen to him, princess,” Eren said. “He’s just jealous.”

“Really? Are you sure it’s not  _ you _ who’s jealous?” you asked, quirking an eyebrow at him as you shoved the chip into your mouth and let it crack between your teeth.

“And why would I be, love? I mean, look at me!” he said, motioning to his body, and you rolled your eyes.

“I really think you’re suffering from some brain damage,” you replied, and he scoffed.

“You just don’t want to admit that I’m sexy. Come on. Don’t be shy and just say it,” he said, placing his arm around the back of your chair and leaning close to you.

“Yeah, no.” You placed your hand on his face and shoved it back.

“Damn, so harsh,” Eren said, rubbing his face.

You opened your mouth to retort back, but Chase sat down his cup and cleared his throat. The sounds of laughter and yelling came from the living room, but you ignored them and trained your ears towards Chase.

“Okay, so when did you two start dating?” he asked, and you whipped your head towards him.

“We’re not!” you told him with wide eyes as panic rushed through your veins, and Eren’s jaw dropped at you.

“Wow, you didn’t have to deny it  _ that _ hard, love. You’ll hurt me and my teenie weenie itty bitty heart,” he said, clutching his chest, and you rolled your eyes.

“Really? You guys didn’t start after you slept together?” Chase asked, and both you and Eren’s eyes widened as you turned to look at him.

“How-” you choked out, and Eren’s mouth opened and closed.

“Wait, you two thought no one knew?” Chase leaned back in his seat and let out a deep breath. “Jayden and I’ve known since a few days after it happened. I, honestly, wanted to chop Eren’s dick off for laying his hands on you, Y/N, but Jayden said it had been a while since you got laid and convinced me to spare him.” Your ears burned red as he pointed a finger at Eren. “You. You better be happy Jayden convinced me not to castrate you. I mean, how hard is it for you to  _ not _ sleep with someone after just meeting them?! Are you a dog in heat every damn day?”

“Well, when she was practically eye fucking me the whole night, there was only so much rationality inside me before it ran out,” Eren responded, and you covered his mouth before he could say another word, warning signals blaring in your mind for impending doom if he didn’t stop talking.

“Okay, how about we  _ don’t _ talk about this?” you said, and Eren grabbed your wrist to pull your hand off his face.

“All right, babes. If that’s what you want,” he told you, and you sighed in relief and sank into your chair, grabbing your drink to take a swig. 

“Sorry, Y/N. I thought you two knew that Jayden and I knew. I mean, it wasn’t hard to deduce,” Chase said, taking a chip and dipping it into the guacamole before he shoved it into his mouth. 

“It’s because of  _ you _ ,” you said, jabbing a finger into Eren’s arm. He winced and gave you a look of disbelief.

“Oh, really? Are you sure it wasn’t because you were limping on Monday and I was the only person you were with at the party?” he asked, and you glared at him. He held up his hands in mock surrender. “Just saying.”

“But you two are really not dating?” Chase asked with a quirked eyebrow, and you shook your head.

“Nope. I’m too busy with classes to worry about things like that right now,” you said.

“So you’re saying there’s a chance in the future?” Eren asked, nudging you with his elbow, and you rolled your eyes with a small smile on your face.

“If that’s what you want to hear,” you told him.

“What classes are you taking that makes it hard to date?” Chase asked you.

“Oh, I have a computer science class that has constant pop quizzes and  _ a lot _ of vocabulary that I need to memorize. I have to take notes every lecture or else it’s difficult. Professor Wickman flies through information  _ way _ too fast,” you said, shuddering when you remembered blinking once to find the whole chalkboard erased after having scribbles all over it.

“You have a professor like that too? I thought I was the only one!” he said. “My psychology professor writes  _ way _ too fast! One second the board is empty, and then the next, she has the whole thing covered. Projectors exist, so just use those!” 

“Exactly! Why do they write so much shit down? All my other teachers use the projector, but no, Wickman loves going old school. We’re learning about  _ computers _ —use them!” you said, angling your body towards Chase as he nodded in agreement.

“If every single one of my professors didn’t use a projector, I would have dropped out. There’s too much writing when they use the board,” he said.

Eren’s chair creaked, and you turned your head to see him walking over to the group of people playing. As he plopped down onto the ground and disappeared from your view, you turned back to Chase as he told you one professor he had that wouldn’t let students use computers to take notes. The group looked at Eren as he sat down and furrowed their eyebrows at him.

“I thought you didn’t want to play with us,” a girl said, her curly hair bouncing as she whipped her head around to look at everyone, who held the same confused look on their faces as she did.

“Change of plans, Na’Kyra,” he said as he crossed his legs and leaned forward.

“They kicked you out, didn’t they?” a guy said, and Eren glared at him.

“No… They just started talking about teachers without me. You know, boring shit,” he responded. “Now hurry up and keep playing.”

A blonde girl pursed her lips in thought. “Since Eren finally decided to grace us with his presence, why don’t we give him a question?”

“Ooh, good idea, Isabelle!” Yasmine said.

“I got one!” Na’Kyra said, and she leaned towards him from her seat on the couch. “Would you rather make out with Mr. Ackerman or Mr. Krasinski?” 

Eren’s face scrunched up in disgust. “Why you gotta do me like this? Mr. Ackerman or Mr. Witch? This is just unfair,” he said, shaking his head.

“Hey!” a guy said. “They made me choose between Yule and Johns! You guys could have given me Ms. Killian or even Ms. Harrison! They’re at least hot!”

“Oh, suck it up, George,” Janet said, and he stuck his tongue out at her. She stuck her tongue back out at him and flicked him off.

“God, I’ll just make out with Mr. Ackerman. I’d rather not bump my nose with Mr. Witch’s,” Eren said, and Will chuckled.

“I knew there was something going on between you and the Phys Ed professor,” he joked, and Eren gagged.

“Hell no! I’d much rather choke that tiny man out than do that shit with him,” he said, and Na’Kyra pouted at him.

“The poor man is just trying to help with your request. Not his fault you wanted him to oversee your training schedule. You’re not even on any of his sports teams!” she said, and Eren waved a dismissive hand at her. She scoffed, but Eren leaned back and fished out his phone. 

Janet spun the bottle and clapped her hands when it landed on Isabelle. While she made Isabelle choose between having sex with Will or making out with Yasmine, Eren opened his text messages and peered up at you as you talked to Chase with a big smile on your face. He tapped on your name and searched through his videos before he sent you a message. Your phone vibrated in your pocket, and you pulled it out.

You turned on your phone and giggled at the video of a cat falling that Eren sent you before you sat it down on the table and looked back at Chase. Before he could continue his story about a high school trip he went on that went wrong, your phone vibrated once more, and when you lifted it, Jayden’s name popped up on the screen. You slid your finger on your screen and placed it to your ear, apologizing to Chase as confusion donned your face. Jayden rarely called you.

“Did something happen, Y/N? You’re always at the dorm when I get back, but you’re not here. Are you all right?” Jayden’s worried voice met you as you held the phone close to your ear, and you plugged your other one to hear the

m better, the sound of laughter echoing in Eren’s living room and reducing your ability to hear.

“Yeah,” you said. “Everything’s fine. I’m just…” You looked at Chase, and he nodded. “Just hanging out with Chase.”

“Chase? Since when did you two get so close? Not that I’m complaining, but still. Tell him not to steal you from me, okay?” You chuckled at their words, the overprotective tone in their voice coming out as their worry for you became apparent. “I already have to battle Eren for your attention, and by the looks of it, he seems to be winning. You better not abandon me, you hear? We’re bosom buddies. Ride or die bitches,” Jayden said, and you hummed. “And you know the saying ‘Bros before hoes’. Don’t be hanging with the hoes instead of me!” You told them you wouldn’t, and they huffed. “Give the phone to Chase so I can lecture him!”

You handed it to Chase, telling him it was Jayden, and he sighed as he took your phone and held it up to his ear. “What is it, Jay?” he asked, and you heard the muffled sound of Jayden’s voice as they talked to him. “No, everything’s fine. We’re at Eren’s apartment. No, he’s playing games in the living room. No-” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “No, he hasn’t done anything that I know of. No, I’m not going to give you the address. She’s  _ fine _ ! Do you think I’d let anything happen? You- It already happened, and you didn’t complain then! Stop moping about how she’s been tainted. You’re even worse. Yeah, yeah, yeah...”

“What are they saying?” you asked, and he sighed, pulling the phone away from his ear to turn it on speaker, Jayden’s voice reaching your ears.

“If he so much as touches my bestie any more than he already has, you better tell me so I can rip his fingers off one by one. I let him off the first time, but he’s a douchebag, so I won’t forgive him a second time,” they said.

“I’m fine, Jayden,” you said. “I can take care of myself, you know? He hasn’t done anything either, so you don’t need to worry.”

“Am I on speaker, Chase? Fuck, turn it off. Don’t let Y/N know my plans!” Jayden said, and he turned the speaker off and brought it back to his ear. You strained your ears to try to make out the muffled words they spoke to him, but when you couldn’t hear anything, you leaned back in your seat and dipped a tortilla chip into the guacamole and chomped on it.

The group playing games had switched to playing Truth or Dare, a few of them already having to lick another player’s foot or talk in Piglatin for a round. Yasmine spun the bottle, everyone’s eyes watching as it spun on the table and slowed down, the end of the bottle pointing towards Eren, his eyes looking at you as you pushed a stray hair out of your face. When the others ooh’ed, he turned his attention back towards them to see the bottle staring at him.

“Okay, Eren! Truth or dare?” Yasmine said as she clapped her hands, sitting up straight and scooting closer to him. When he said dare, she looked over at you through the cutout wall and his eyes that wandered over to you. “I dare you to sit back at the table and stop playing.”

“What kind of dare is that?” Eren asked with a confused look on his face, and she sighed.

“You’re barely paying attention to the games we’re playing and keep looking over at Chase and that girl. Either go back and talk to them or actually play with us,” she said, and a few murmurs of agreement arose from the small group. 

“I’ll pay attention now, so give me an actual dare,” Eren said, sliding his phone into his pocket and holding his hands in front of him to show he wouldn’t text you anymore. 

“Dude, just go over there and talk to them,” George said, and Na’Kyra nodded.

“You’re acting like a virgin now. Why are you so scared to talk to a girl?” she asked, leaning forward towards him.

“I’m not scared to talk to her!” Eren told the group. “Chase is there!”

“If you’re not scared to talk to her, then get your ass over there,” Janet said.

“Come on, man. Just go,” Will said.

“No, now give me a real dare,” Eren said.

“No,” Yasmine said, and she reached out a hand to pinch his chest.

“Ow! That’s my nipple!” Eren shrank back and covered his chest. Janet pinched his other nipple, and he swatted at her hand. “This is harassment!”

“Then go sit back there. You’re being boring!” Na’Kyra said as Yasmine snaked a hand under his hand and twisted his nipple.

“Not there,” Eren jokingly moaned out, and Janet slapped him on the shoulder. He clutched his arm and leaned away from her. “Okay, fine! I’ll leave.” He stood up and dusted his pants off as he gave everyone a glre. “Damn, kicking me out of my own fucking living room.”

“Bye bye, love virgin!” Isabelle waved to him, and he stuck his middle finger up at her as he walked back to the table to see your eyes trained on Chase as he talked on your phone. Chase looked up as he came back.

“You’re back earlier than I expected,” Chase said to Eren, handing your phone back to you once Jayden ended the call, and you pocketed it as Eren sat down next to you with a sigh.

“They kicked me out,” he said, slouching in his seat.

“Damn. Sucks for you,” Chase said.

“Wow, nice of you.”

“We were just talking about random things, so you can chime in with us if you’d like,” you said, and Eren smiled at you.

“I see you’re dropping your tsundere attitude now,” he said, and you rolled your eyes. “Never mind. It’s back.”

Chase mentioned a movie he saw recently, and Eren chimed in as you listened to them go back and forth. The clock on the wall ticked as time passed, the three of you talking about whatever you could think of while the others giggled about the dares they gave each other. Soon, the sky outside turned black, and Chase mentioned how it was getting late. Eren agreed and stood up from his seat while you and Chase did the same, pushing in your chairs. 

“All right, you guys. Get the fuck out,” Eren said, walking over to the group to grab the empty bowls from the table. They whined as he stole their case of beer, but he kicked at them.

“It’s only been like 3 hours, dude!” Will said.

“Well, guess what? I have work tomorrow, so I’d like to go to sleep soon.”

“If you still want to party, we can go to that karaoke bar nearby,” Chase offered as he walked into the living room with you behind him, and everyone perked up at that. They jumped to their feet and walked towards the hallway without another word, and Chase followed after them. While they pulled on their shoes and coats, their chatter echoed through the apartment.

“I’m totally going to blow all of you guys away with my vocals,” Janet said, and Yasmine laughed.

“If sounding like a dying donkey is blowing us away, then you’re right,” she said, and the others chuckled as Janet playfully slapped her. 

Their voices disappeared as Chase wheeled them out of the apartment. He nodded to you and Eren as he pushed them towards the elevator. As the elevator door closed and took them down to the lobby, you turned to look at Eren.

“I guess I’ll get going too,” you told him, and he smiled at you as he walked with you to the entrance. 

You slipped your shoes on and pulled your jacket off, and he rested a hand on the door above your head. You stepped into the hallway and turned back to look at him to give him another goodbye, but he leaned in to the side of your face. The musk of his cologne entered your nose and made your mind hazy.

“Good night, kitten,” he whispered in your ear, and your breath caught in your throat as his breath tickled the shell of your ear and sent shivers down your spine. 

“G-good night,” you said back, mentally slapping yourself for stuttering, and he pulled away from you to give you a soft smile. You nodded to him and turned away from him to walk towards the elevator, and when you looked over your shoulder, he waved at you and disappeared inside his apartment. As you went inside the open elevator and pressed the button for the lobby, you clutched your chest, your heart slamming into your rib cage. 

Maybe you’d rethink trying to get over your crush on Eren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you guys want to give me ideas for future stories, constructive criticism, or just ask me questions, my tumblr is nutmegalomania.tumblr.com❤️ see you next chapter, mwah!


	6. like u

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'd like to have  
> Some time with you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i drank like two cups of coffee and chewed gum while i finished up the last 6,000 words of this chapter tonight. i just really want my damn computer glasses so i can get rid of my back and neck pain from slouching and leaning towards my screen and write for longer periods of time💔 hopefully this chapter isn't too all over the place and that next chapter can be written better. since you all have been VERY patient, the next chapter will have a certain scene in it😉 so that is my fair warning in case it is late because it's hard to write those scenes all at once... have a great day/week/month!💖💖💖

The sound of whirring air conditioning and pages turning echoed through the quiet library as you sat in your seat, a pile of books next to you while you scribbled notes onto a piece of lined paper. Your eyes flitted from the textbooks to your paper littered with pencil scribbles as you studied for your midterms coming up in a few weeks. If you didn’t do well on these midterms, the college would revoke your scholarship, and you’d be fucked.

You had finished taking notes for your psychology and statistics midterm, and all you had left were your history and computer science courses. The history book you opened readied itself to close as you got towards the end of what you needed to study, notes on the renaissance taking up space on your paper. The five hours you sat in the library helped you get ahead on your notes, and once you finished the last few notes on your history class and all of your computer science course notes, you could leave the library and spend the next few weeks going over your notes until you had to take your tests.

You pinched the bridge of your nose as your pencil ran over the top of the paper, and a sigh of relief left you as you closed the history textbook and shoved it off to the side. The computer science textbook opened up in front of you, and your finger skimmed the words as you searched for information you remember your professor mentioned. As you pulled out a fresh piece of paper and readied your pencil to write down words, the chair in front of you creaked as someone pulled it out and plopped down into it. A stack of several books hit the top of the table, and you looked up as the thud shook the table.

The moment your eyes caught sight of familiar green eyes and black hair tied into a bun, you wish you had never looked up. Eren smiled at you as he pulled out a book and opened it up. You choked on your saliva as the title of the book stared you in the face. “ _The Art of the Female Orgasm_.”

Upon further inspection, all of the books he had brought over had to do with sex—a book on 100 of the greatest sex positions, another on the best way to give oral, on mentioning how to give a woman a “mind-blowing” orgasm, and so on. A deep, disappointed breath pushed past your lips as he leaned back in his seat and flipped the page, his face contorting into over-the-top expressions of amusement and understanding. Though he stayed quiet, only the sound of the flipping page coming from his seat, you couldn’t focus on your computer science book that begged for your attention, especially not when a book on female orgasms laughed at you.

“What the hell are you doing?” you whispered at him, leaning forward over the table so no one would overhear you, and he quirked an eyebrow up at you as he peered over the top of the book. A few people walking by gave him strange looks when their eyes fell on the books he had next to him, but if he cared, he didn’t show it.

“What does it look like? I’m studying,” he said, flipping to the next page and making an interested face.

“Why are you in a _library_ when you could use Google?” you asked, and he blinked at you.

“Cause Jay told me you’d be here.”

You shook your head in shock and leaned back in your seat as your ears turned red. “People are looking at you weird.”

He shrugged. “Then let them. I’m not bothering anyone by just reading.” His eyes scanned the book, and he hummed, leaning towards you and speaking in a hushed tone. “Did you know that women can have cervical orgasms?”

You stared at him with an incredulous look. “I didn’t need to know that.” 

He held up a hand at you in mock surrender. “Just thought you wanted to know since you’re a woman.” 

“There’s some things I don’t care about, and that’s one of them,” you said, and he huffed.

“Well, be that way then. I bet you didn’t know the clitoris had 8,000 nerve endings, which is twice as many as the glans of the penis.” 

“I don’t care,” you said, huffing and focusing on your computer science textbook. He pursed his lips and returned to flipping through the book. As you wrote down your notes, your phone vibrated in your pocket, and you tugged it out to flip it on and tapped the notification on the screen. A contact you thought you had deleted greeted you, and as your eyes scanned the words, a deep sigh left you.

**Hello, Miss Y/N. We hope you are doing well. It has come to our attention that you haven’t been attending your therapy sessions for a few months. Would you like to schedule a new appointment?**

You deleted the text and sat your phone face down on the desk. Eren nudged your shin with the tip of his shoe, and your eyes trailed up to look at him. His lips moved, words forming as he asked if you were all right. You nodded and reassured him that you were fine, and he moved his attention back down to the book in his hands, this one on sex positions. His eyes widened and lips puckered as he looked around and leaned over the table.

“Have you ever tried the wheelbarrow position?” he asked, shoving the book towards you to show a picture of a man standing while he supported a woman’s waist as she held her upper body up with her hands, her ankles wrapped around his hamstrings. 

“No! Put that away!” you said, kicking his shin. He flinched, his knee slamming into the table and directing people’s attention over to the two of you, and he apologized to the disturbed people as he rubbed his shin. He scrunched his face up as his fingers ran over the spot you kicked, and he hissed.

“Damn. You could just say you prefer the Rusty Trombone instead,” he said, and you sighed.

“What the fuck is that?” you asked, annoyance building up in you at your study session being interrupted.

His face lit up, and he abandoned his shin to grab the book and flip to a page. “I’m glad you asked!” He pushed the book towards you to show you a picture of a man standing with his side to the camera, a woman on the floor in front of his ass as her hand snaked between his legs to hold his penis. “Bet you did this a lot,” Eren said, and you slammed your textbook shut.

“Okay, that’s enough. Goodbye,” you said, your chair screeching against the ground as you pushed it back and grabbed your books to leave. He jumped up and picked up his books to rush after you as you put your books in the return slot and smiled at the librarian with as much kindness as you could muster. 

“Wait, wait, wait! I’m sorry. Don’t-” He shoved the books in the slot and nodded to the unamused librarian before he ran after you. “Hey, Annie,” he said, nodding to a blonde girl who gave him a bored look as she restocked a shelf next to the librarian’s desk.

“Fuck off,” she replied, and he gave her a curt nod.

“Thought so. Armin says hi.” He watched the library door close shut as you exited the building, and he pushed it open to catch up to you. “Wait up!”

You shook your head as you walked down the steps in front of the building, an irritated sigh exiting your nostrils at your ruined study session and the text you received. He jogged up to you—curse his long legs for covering more distance than you could—and placed a hand on your shoulder. You whipped around to give him a glare, and he sucked in a breath.

“What?” you said.

He retracted his hand. “I’m sorry for bugging you.”

You crossed your arms over your chest and cocked out your hip. “Really? Because it seemed like you enjoyed annoying me back there. Did you and Jayden decide upon it together? Seems like something they’d think of.”

He readjusted his black shirt and bit his bottom lip, eyes avoiding yours. “I’m sorry. I just wanted to tease you a little bit, but I went too far.”

“Yeah, thanks to you, I didn’t get to finish taking notes for my midterms,” you said.

His eyebrows furrowed, and he moved a stray piece of hair out of his face. “Aren’t the midterms in a month?” 

You rolled your eyes at him. “So? I wanted to get ahead and study now. Is there a problem with that?” 

“No, not at all. I didn’t know it was that important to you. Sorry.”

You rubbed your temples. “Just stop apologizing.”

Eren nodded and fixed his belt as his eyes moved around your face. “How about this…” You looked up at him, and he cleared his throat. “You tell me when I do something that makes you uncomfortable, and I’ll stop doing it. Like now, I won’t do shit like I just did anymore.”

You hummed and crossed your arms once more. “All right. And to be fair, I’ll do the same. If I hurt you or make you uncomfortable, you better tell me as well.”

He scratched his head. “I doubt you’ll have to worry about that since you’re so sexy.”

“Okay, first thing for you to stop doing!” You snapped your fingers and jabbed a finger into his chest. “That.”

“What? Calling you sexy?” he said.

“Exactly. Flattery won’t get you anywhere,” you told him and started off back towards your dorm.

“Hey, I’ll have you know that I don’t lie, princess. I mean it when I say it,” he said, scurrying after you, and you let out a dry chuckle.

“Uh-huh, if you say so, sweetie.”

“Wow, did you just call me a pet name?” he said, a hand clutching his chest, and you rolled your eyes.

“Chase really was right. I should stop associating with you if I want to keep my brain cells,” you said. 

“Now why would you listen to Chase? He’s just jealous, baby!” Eren told you, and you shook your head as you crossed the street and left him jogging after you. “Come on. Don’t ignore me now, kitten.”

“I’m still mad at you,” you lied, your annoyance thanks to him disappearing and becoming replaced by irritation at the text the therapy place sent you. You’d thought they’d get the hint that you weren’t going back if you didn’t go for a few months, but clearly they didn’t understand. You just hoped they wouldn’t text Jayden, or you’d never get out of that.

“If I take you out for boba, will you forgive me?” he asked you, and your ears perked up at that, mind wandering away from thoughts of boring therapy sessions that only served to waste your time and never fix your problems.

“We have a boba place?” you asked, glancing at him from the corner of your eyes, and he chuckled.

“Wow, I thought you’d be the first person to know about the shop. Goes to show just how reclusive you are,” he joked, shoving hands into his pockets, and you punched his bicep. He didn’t flinch when your fist connected with his muscles, and your hand ached as you retracted it.

“Next thing for you to stop doing: mentioning my antisocial tendencies,” you said, and he gasped.

“Then how else will I make fun of you?”

“You can’t. Only Jayden can, which reminds me that I need to kick them for not telling me about this boba place,” you said, crossing your arms and thinking about your foot connecting with their shin to show them your annoyance whenever you saw them next. 

Eren chuckled, and your chest squeezed at the rumbling noise that reached your ears. “I’ll find something to use against you,” he said, and you rolled your eyes. He scoffed and nudged you with his side. “Come on, I promise I won’t make fun of you for now, so let’s get boba, okay?”

“You’re paying,” you said, and your feet took you off in the opposite direction towards the city, but Eren grabbed your arm.

“If that’s what you want, princess,” he said. “Also, the boba place isn’t in that direction. It’s in the food district, not downtown.”

You blew a strand of hair out of your face as your cheeks heated up. “I knew that. I was just testing you,” you said, and he let out an airy chuckle. 

“Says the one who didn’t even know we had a boba place nearby. You’re pretty bad with directions,” he said, and his eyes lit up, a mischievous twinkle in them making your heart drop. “ _That’s_ what I can make fun of you for! Your total lack of spatial awareness.”

“You fucking do that, and I’ll kick you.”

“Then how will you ever find the boba place? You can’t harm your guide!” He chuckled as you tried to push him, but he moved out of the way of your hand, and you stumbled forward. His arm wrapped around your midsection to keep you from falling. “Careful, love. Wouldn’t want you falling any harder for me than you already are.”

“Says who?” you said with a roll of your eyes as you stood up straight and pulled his arm off of your waist. 

“Me. I can see it in your eyes.” He gasped and stepped back. “Do you want to kiss me right now?”

“If it means you’ll never talk to me again, then maybe I do,” you said, and he scrunched up his nose at you.

“And why would I ever want to do that?”

You shook your head and rolled your eyes. “Let’s just get boba now before I jump into the road,” you said, and he used his shoulder to push you to the middle of the sidewalk as he walked by the road.

“Not on my watch. We’ll get boba, and you’ll fall in love with me, and you _won’t_ try to jump into oncoming traffic. How does that sound?” he said, and you crossed your arms.

“Horrible,” you told him.

“In theory, maybe. In execution, it will be amazing, so let’s try it out.” The wide smile on his face made you ready to kiss it off of him, and you settled for shaking your head with a deep sigh. He chuckled as he led you towards the little boba tea shop, its sage green entrance grabbing your attention, and you thanked him when he held the door open for you. 

A wall mounted table lined the left side of the establishment as the ordering station waited on across from it, a few workers scurrying around behind the counter to give the few customers inside their drinks. At the end of the counter closest to you, a display of the different toppings you could put into your drinks from tapioca to boba pearls and adzuki beans stared at you. A couple of girls giggled to themselves at the table against the wall, and a man moved past you to leave with a red drink in hand. Eren guided you towards the register, where a blue haired girl tapped the screen.

“Hello, Savannah,” he said to the girl, and she looked up to expose her septum ring and eyebrow piercing to you.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Eren. What girl did you bring this time?” she asked, peering around his body at your smaller figure, your eyes wandering around the board of various drinks while your hands fiddled with the ends of your sleeves. A blue eyebrow quirked up at him. “She’s _so_ not your type.”

“Not so loud!” he said, and he put a finger up to his lips. “So what if she isn’t my type? How do you even know what my type is?” He crossed his arms as she ran her eyes over his body with an incredulous look.

“Never mind. I forget you fuck anything that’s human. Now are you going to order or what?” She tapped the register, and he sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets.

He looked over his shoulder at you tugging on your sleeves as you mumbled to yourself. “Did you decide on something yet?” he asked, his voice startling you out of your thoughts of whether to choose the oreo or the classic tea.

“Uh… I guess the Oreo one,” you said as Savannah dragged her eyes over you. 

“How much sugar?” she asked, and you squinted your eyes to look at the small poster in front of the register with the levels of sugar they offered.

“Half,” you said, deciding it was a safe bet to keep it from being too sweet or too bland. She nodded and tapped it into the register before she looked up at Eren.

“What do you want?” 

“You should know by now, sweetums,” he said, and she gave him a deadpan expression. 

“Toppings?”

“Just put tapioca,” Eren said, glancing back at you as you walked over to look at the different toppings available. The red beans grabbed your attention, and you wondered how they’d taste, but you were too afraid to ask for them and just let Eren choose.

“A strawberry and Oreo coming up,” she said, and she finished tapping on the screen and waited for him to pay. He pulled out his credit card and swiped it as you walked back up to him and stuck close to his side. Once he paid, she turned around and busied herself with making the drinks for you two.

“Shouldn’t another worker be making our drinks while you man the cash register?” Eren asked, and she shook her head.

“There’s no one coming in, so I’m doing this to give me something to do. Now go stand off to the side in case someone does come in. You’re in the way,” she said and returned to working on the drinks.

You grabbed Eren’s wrist and tugged him off to the side, and the girls sitting against the table dragged their eyes over him and giggled to each other. He looked over his shoulder at them and gave them a little wave, and they hid their faces with their hair.

“I see you still find time to flirt with random girls,” you commented, and he chuckled.

“Are you perhaps jealous? You don’t have to worry, baby.” He rested a hand on your waist and bent down to your ear. “They’re probably high schoolers. Besides, I’m with you, aren’t I?” 

“Yeah, yeah. Not like I had much choice with how much you stick to me,” you said, and he scoffed.

“Are you calling me clingy?” he asked in a fake offended voice.

“Yep, you’re like a bug. A little gnat always buzzing around my ear,” you said, swatting at your ears for show, and he rolled his eyes as he jabbed the inside of his cheek with his tongue.

“You say that, but you very easily could have headed home. _You_ chose to come with _me_ ,” he said.

“I can’t turn down an offer for free food,” you said, glancing at your nails to pick the dirt out from underneath them. 

“So it’s because I’m your sugar daddy?” he asked, bending over and putting his face in front of you to peer at you.

Your lips spread into a fake smile. “If that’ll help you sleep better at night.”

A deep sigh left Eren as he stood up straight. “Just say you love me. That’ll be so much easier for both of us.”

“Yeah, no.” You turned away from him to glance at the machinery behind the counter, and a worker came out from a back room, their face familiar. “Connie?” you asked, stepping closer, and he shot his eyes up to look at you.

“Y/N? I-I haven’t seen you around here before,” he said, and he scratched the back of his neck, eyes wandering over to Eren as the man watched Savannah. Connie’s eyes turned to slits as he stared at Eren, and you leaned against the counter to get his attention.

“I just found out about this place. Why didn’t you tell me you worked here? I would have come a lot sooner!” you said, and he gulped as you leaned against the counter, chest pressed against the white countertop. His eyes flicked down to the small amount of cleavage peeking out from your sweater’s collar that hung down.

“I didn’t think it was something worth mentioning,” he said, and you pouted.

“I love boba, but no one told me about this place. If I had known it was here and that you worked here, I would have come by every week to complain about our professor.”

“You didn’t know about it because you’re a recluse,” Eren commented, and you kicked at him.

“I said not to comment about that!” you said, and he stuck his tongue out at you. Connie’s eyes dragged up from your chest to flit between you and Eren, and he pursed his lips.

You rolled your eyes and looked back at Connie. “Anyways, I heard that our CS course will be having a project soon. I really hope I get paired up with you,” you said as you rested your face against your fist, your cheek smushing, and you tapped the countertop.

“Ah, yeah,” he replied, throat bobbing as you pressed more against the counter.

The door behind Connie creaked, and a bob of black hair stuck out, which made Eren suck in a deep breath, body tensing. He rested a hand on your back and whispered in your ear.

“I’ll be right back. If our drinks are done before I get back, just wait at a table, okay?” he said, and you nodded. 

The girl appeared fully, a plate in her hands, and her eyes widened when she spotted Eren. She rushed over to the two girls at the table to drop the food off before she dashed after Eren’s retreating figure. 

“Eren,” she called out, and he sped up towards the bathrooms. She grabbed his arm, and he whirled around to face her.

“What?” he said, icy words stabbing at her, and she flinched.

“Your mother and father are worried. You haven’t answered any of their calls,” she said, hand tightening around his bicep. 

“It’s none of your business, Mikasa. Stop meddling,” he told her, shrugging her arm off of him. Her hand fell to her side as her pupils glistened with sadness.

“It’s been three years, Eren. Don’t you think you should be over it by now?” she asked, and he whirled around, jaw twitching as his eyes widened and burned with anger.

“Like hell I’d be over it!” His voice carried through the small building, and you jumped as the loud sound reached your ears. 

Your body tensed and shook for a few seconds as a sudden rush of fear coursed through your veins as your mind readied itself for the worst case scenario, but after a few seconds of silence, you took a deep breath and calmed down, resuming your conversation with Connie as Savannah placed you and Eren’s drink next to you. 

Eren stepped closer to Mikasa and leaned towards her face, voice dropping as pure anger filled his words. “Why the fuck do they think I’d forgive them after dealing with their shit for 18 years, huh? They haven’t apologized once or tried to at least understand me, so I’m not going to talk to them. It’s too late for them to try to act like true parents now.” 

“They’ve been reflecting on their past actions. If you talk to them, you’ll see,” she said, not faltering as she stared into his eyes.

“Why are you so intent on fixing shit you’re not a part of?” he asked her.

“Because-”

“Because they asked you to meddle? I thought I made it clear to you that I want nothing to do with them, and yet you keep talking to me about them,” Eren towered over her, and she craned her neck to look up at him.

“Your rebellious phase is getting old. You’re not a teenager anymore. Come to your senses and realize that they only wanted what was best for you.”

“I am _not_ having this conversation with you anymore,” Eren said, and he turned around to head back towards you when Mikasa blocked his way.

“Then when will you? You can’t keep acting like this,” she said, and he placed his hands on her shoulders to drag her out of his way.

“Never,” he said, stepping past her before she could move and walking back to you as you continued chatting with Connie.

You chuckled at a joke he told, you and Eren’s drinks in front of you, and he reached a hand towards your face. You flinched and jumped backwards, body tense as his hand hung in the air. He retracted his hand, eyes wide, as you took a shuddering breath to calm your heart.

“I’m-I’m sorry. You had a strand of hair in your face,” Connie said, and you nodded.

“It’s… it’s fine. I didn’t mean to react like that,” you told him, and he bit his lip. Eren walked past you and out the door without a word, and you gave Connie a confused look before you grabbed the drinks. “I’ll talk to you later. I’m sorry we couldn’t talk more,” you said, hoping to calm down the awkwardness between you and Connie. 

He nodded and gave you an awkward wave as you left the shop to rush after Eren’s long legs. You tried calling out to him several times, but he didn’t stop. Only when he got closer to the road did he slow down enough for you to catch up to him and tap his arm with the back of your hand. He glanced at you without a word, and you gulped at his emotionless eyes.

“What… what are you in such a hurry for,” you panted out, reaching forward to hand him his drink. 

His eyes remained fixated on your outstretched hand for a few moments, and when your arm started retracting, he grabbed the drink from you. He didn’t say anything, and you pursed your lips at his sudden change in attitude. You wanted to ask him about the yelling you heard earlier, but you refrained from it as his irritated figure stood in front of you.

“Why don’t we take a walk through the park nearby?” you offered, and he blinked at you.

“Do you even know where it is?” he said, and you flinched at the coldness in his words. Long gone was his teasing tone, and you suddenly missed his constant flirting. 

“I-I know where it is! It’s one place Jayden told me about,” you said, and he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

“Sorry. That came out too harsh. I didn’t mean to snap at you like that,” he said as you tried to walk towards the park with a tense body. “Just some shit happening that isn’t important.”

“If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears,” you told him as you took a sip of your drink, humming in satisfaction as the sweetness of Oreos coated your tongue, a few pearls slipping into your mouth to be crushed between your teeth.

“It’s not interesting. Just boring familial shit,” he said, swirling the cup in his hand around.

You decided to try your luck to squeeze a little bit out of him. You knew talking about it would help. “What kind of familial shit?” you asked, twirling around to face him as you walked backwards in front of him.

“Parents acting like they know everything about me when they were barely there for me.” He sighed and looked off to the side. “It doesn’t matter. Let’s just… talk about something else,” he said, and you nodded.

You hummed as you turned around to lead him towards the park, your mind whirring as you thought of things to talk about. Your feet stopped moving, and you turned around to grab Eren’s hand holding the boba. He froze as you pulled his hand up towards your face, lips latching onto his straw as you took a sip of his drink. Sweet strawberries invaded your mouth, and when a slight sourness struck you, you scrunched up your face as his eyebrows rose on his forehead.

“I didn’t take you for a strawberry kinda guy,” you said, and he chuckled.

“What? Are you saying a guy can’t enjoy a nice pink strawberry drink everyone once in a while?” he asked, tone lightening slightly, and you hummed.

“I thought you were more of a blueberry person,” you told him, and he shook his head as he took a sip.

“Ooh, indirect kiss,” he said once he pulled his lips off of the straw, and you rolled your eyes.

“Of course that’s what you’d focus on.”

He shrugged. “It’s because I don’t see how you’d think I was a blueberry guy. Just not my thing, you know? I’m more of a pink than purple person.” He placed the straw between his teeth as he walked.

“Do you have something against purple?” you asked.

“Pinks a man’s color, that’s why,” he said, and you drank some of your boba. 

“That’s your whole reason for being into strawberry?”

“Is there a problem with it?” 

“Nope. Whatever floats your boat,” you said, grabbing your straw to mix around the pearls inside the chocolatey liquid. Stone retaining walls housing a variety of flowers and large trees line a brick path stretching in front of you and Eren, small specks of light shining through holes in the leaves to dot the pathway. A few benches rested against the retaining walls and offered a nice place for passerby to rest. 

Eren walked in front of you and turned around, his larger body blocking your way through the park. “That sounded very sarcastic, baby.”

Your heart fluttered as he returned to using pet names with you. His mind must have wandered from what happened in the boba shop, and happiness flooded your chest. “Sorry, you struck me as a red guy rather than pink.”

“Everyone thinks that. Is it because I always wear a red snapback?” he said, running a hand through his hair, and you shook your head. A soft breeze blew through the park, rustling the leaves and tousling his hair, strands sticking out in every direction.

“Or it could be the fact that you dress like a walking stop sign half of the week,” you told him as you brought your hand up to sweep your hands through his dark strands to straighten them, the soft hair tickling your fingers and reminding you of the black puppy, Matteo, from your work. Eren just reminded you of a dog in general, you realized. He stared at you in silence as your hands left his hair, and it took you a few seconds to realize what you just did. Your eyes widened, and you yanked your hand away from him. “Oh, my, God! Sorry, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s just, your hair reminded me of this puppy from my work place, and I just really wanted to touch it, and-” you took a deep breath as he tilted his head to the side, eyebrow quirked as he listened to you ramble on. “I’ll stop talking now.”

“I never said I hated it,” he said, and your head snapped up to him, ears burning. “Can’t say I like being compared to a puppy. I think I’m more like a full grown pitbull.”

You chuckled. “Yeah, right. You’re like a little puppy begging for attention twenty-four seven,” you said, and he made an offended sound.

“First you call me a gnat, and now I’m a puppy? Pick one, princes. Am I a cute puppy or a sexy pest?” he asked, pushing his side into you.

“Neither.” You pushed him back, and he chuckled. “You’re just a pest.”

“I’m hurt.” He clutched his chest, and you pushed him in the side again and rolled your eyes. “At least I’m a pest you don’t seem to be in a rush to get rid of. That must mean something.”

You walked in front of him and spun around to look at him. “Nope. It just means I’m too lazy to worry,” you said.

He rolled his eyes and took a sip from his drink, coughing as a tapioca pearl lodged itself in his throat. “Ficker (fucker)!” he cursed as he hit his sternum to stop choking. 

You giggled at him, and he looked at you, a mischievous look on his face, and reached for you. Your eyes widened, and you jumped onto the retaining wall to distance yourself from him. You held up a finger as he tried to grab your legs.

“Bad dog. Unless you want me to fall off of here, I suggest you back off,” you said, and he held up his hands. 

“You’re the one who laughed at me while I was dying,” he said in a matter of fact tone, and you snorted.

“Yeah, because you looked stupid.” You poked him in the forehead, and he rolled his eyes as he tilted his head back with your push. 

His fingers curled around your wrist as he pulled your hand down and bit your finger, his teeth pressing into your flesh. He looked up at you with a playful look in his eyes, and he shook his head, your hand moving with it. You bit your lip and rolled your eyes, slipping your finger from his mouth.

“You’re so weird.”

“You said I’m like a dog.”

“Didn’t know you weren’t into that kinda of play,” you said, scrunching your face up at him as you started walking on the wall. 

You stretched out a hand beside you as you placed the straw of your drink into your mouth to finish off your boba. He walked beside you, a hand in his pocket, and sipped on his drink, the pink liquid going down in the cup. 

“I thought you were the one with that kink,” he said, and you bonked him on the head with your outstretched hand.

“Nope. Not in a million years will I be into puppy play. Sorry to disappoint, babes,” you told him, and he chuckled.

“Damn, there goes all my plans,” he joked, and you stuck your tongue out at him in mock disgust. 

“Why does it always get sexual with you?” You finished off the last of the tapioca in your cup and tossed it into a trash can nearby.

“Okay, fine. Why don’t you tell me about your dreams and aspirations?” When you quirked an eyebrow at him, he shrugged. “It’s something that’s not sexual, isn’t it?”

You hummed in thought for a few seconds and stared at your feet as you placed one foot in front of the other, arms outstretched beside you. “You first.”

“Nice deflection there,” he said, and you smiled at him, eyes disappearing as your cheeks scrunched them up. “Well… ever since I was a kid, I dreamed of being a police officer.”

You dragged your eyes over to his body, imagining the blue uniform on his body, and he turned his head to look at you.

“You’re imagining me in the uniform, aren’t you?” he said. “Who’s the one who said to stop talking about sexual things?”

You huffed, mad he interrupted your day dreaming session of a police officer Eren twirling a pair of handcuffs around his fingers. The words would never escape your lips, but you couldn’t help but want to see him in a uniform in person. It fit him too well. “I’m not,” you told him, ears burning as you rolled your eyes.

“Mhm… I bet you have a uniform kink,” he said, and you scoffed.

“You’re the one who keeps making things sexual! Stop making everything weird.” You placed a hand on top of his head and ruffled his hair. He groaned and smoothed down the loose strands when you retracted your hand. “Why do you want to be a police officer?” you asked.

“So that you’d have the hots for me,” he said, and you glared at him. He pouted at your reaction and tossed his drink in a trash can. “Fine.” He looked up at the trees, his eyes getting a far away look as the shadows of the rustling leaves reflected in his irises. “The real reason is because I look up to someone who was a police officer. He wasn’t like the piece of shit cops who don’t care about anyone and are cops for the perks. No, he actually had a sense of justice and wanted to help people. I admired that—I still do. At first, I thought he was a lazy guy who didn’t care for his job, but when it really came down to it, he would die if it meant protecting civilians.” He took a deep breath, his shoulders slumping as his eyes glistened. Your heart clenched when his voice shook near the end, and your breathing turned shallow. 

Eren bit a trembling lip and hung his head to avoid your worried eyes. “It happened in front of me. A drunk bastard broke into my house—when was it?—six years ago. My parents were away on a quick trip, and it was just me and my sister.” His throat bobbed. “I heard a crashing noise and came down to see a stranger searching our house, and I ran back upstairs to call the police and wake up my sister. He heard the commotion and fired a shot through the ceiling into my parents room.” A hand pulled his hair back before letting it fall into his face. “I was startled and made the bad decision to take her down into the kitchen, and the drunk son of a bitch spotted us.” He sighed. “de Fotze (the cunt)... he threatened to shoot me if I didn’t listen to him. He was waving a gun around like a madman, so I listened to him and sat in a corner with my sister. I should have done something, _anything_ other than that, but my cowardly fucking ass couldn’t do anything else.” He pressed his palms into his eyes. “Luckily, Hannes had been on patrol nearby and showed up soon. The moment he opened the door with his gun ready, the drunk guy shot him right in the chest.” 

Silence spread as he stopped for a moment, his lips trembling as he pursed them to hide their shaking from you.

“Fuck, sorry,” he said, rubbing his palms against his eyes, and you watched him with sympathy.

“Take your time,” you told him, and he nodded.

“dieser Hurensohn (that son of a bitch)...” Eren sighed. “Thankfully, Hannes was able to shoot him back, but all I could fucking do was just sit there with trembling hands as I held onto my sister.” He threw his head back to keep the tears from spilling and sniffled. “Fuck, I was pathetic.”

You bit your lips as you thought of a response. “You did what you thought was best,” you said, and he stopped in his tracks to turn towards you and rest the top of his head against your stomach.

“Tell me about your dream,” he said.

“Mine isn’t that important or noble,” you said, hands toying with his hair, and he peered up at you with tear-glistening eyes.

“Please…” His desperate plea broke your heart, and you let out a deep breath. If it meant it would take his mind off of his story, you’d tell him every detail until he couldn’t think of anything else.

“I knew what I wanted to do since I was in middle school. I loved playing games and learning new things, so I wondered ‘What if there’s a game that could teach people things while still being interesting?’” You twirled a strand of his hair around your finger. “I tried searching for some, but none of them kept me engaged; I would get bored after a few hours. That’s when it hit me. I’d make the game myself. It wasn’t enough that I just wanted to make a fun and educational game. I had to think of the demographic. So I imagined what it would look like if little kids played the game, their little eyes lighting up with wonder at all the things they learned.” 

Eren lifted his head off of your stomach to look at you with a soft smile. You pouted your lips in thought as you tried to word your next sentences. Your feet started walking on the wall, and he followed beside you. 

“Kids always have a short attention span, so I wanted to make something that they would fall in love with and play for a while. If it was educational, parents would be more willing to let them play is what I thought. So I came up with a story where a professor was searching for a lost treasure and had to learn different things in order to advance. Then another problem arose: what should my game teach the player? Math? Science? History? Literature? I asked several people, but they all gave me different answers, so I decided to do all of them.” You turned to look at Eren and clasped your hands behind your back. “Not all at once of course. The world would be separated into different sections that pertained to each subject and taught the player at varying difficulties depending on how far they were. Then my third problem! I couldn’t draw—still can’t—so I had no way of creating character designs. I could write the characters, but I sure as hell couldn’t bring them to life through art. That’s where Jayden saved my ass. They didn’t ask me to pay them for their hard work and only said they could use it as practice. They drew my characters and did what I couldn’t. I had them down on paper, but they breathed life into them and made them better than I could have imagined.”

Eren stopped walking. “Wait, Jay can draw?” he asked, eyebrows rising high up on his forehead.

“You didn’t know they could?” you asked.

He nodded. “They’re an enigma to me, even now.”

You hummed. “They were the reason I could even start the game. They drew the rough character designs that fit the personalities I made up for them. Without Jayden, it would have stayed a crappy game with even crappier drawings.” 

A sudden loud honk from a car startled you, and you tripped on your feet, body heading straight for the ground. Eren rushed forward and caught you before you could fall to the brick ground, and your body trembled in his arms, the shock from the noise shooting fear into your veins. Your breathing stopped as your heart sped up, and warning sirens blared in your ears. Eren’s grip around you kept you grounded, and you took a deep breath to calm down. Your breathing steadily returned to normal, and the shaking calmed down. He lifted you up to put your trembling legs onto the ground.

“Are you all right?” he asked, bloodshot eyes filled with worry, and you nodded your head.

“Just… just got startled. That’s all.” You swiped your hair out of your face. “Where-where was I?” 

“You were talking about the drawings,” he said, a hand resting on your lower back to stabilize you, and you nodded.

“Right…” With a deep breath, you tried to calm your heart and start up again. Your eyes lit up as you remembered the first drawing Jayden showed you. “The first ever character they drew for me holds a special place in my heart. Professor Hitchcock—the name’s still a work in progress—is the main character, so she had to have a presence so that people wouldn’t ignore her. Jayden gave her fiery red hair that cascaded down her back in beautiful waves, her blue eyes hidden behind thick rimmed glasses. She wore safari clothes with a little hat and always carried around a backpack filled to the rim with various books and maps. The books offered hints to answering questions as well as material to learn if need be, and the maps showed them where they had already explored and where they still had to go to get to the treasure.” 

A wide smile spread on your face, eyes twinkling as you recalled the countless days spent thinking up ideas for the game. “It would have various difficulties through pathways that the player could choose, and if they were too hard, the books would give them a short lesson to help them as a hint. I’d try to phrase it as simply as possible to make it easier to learn so that they could advance. As you went farther, you’d meet more people and animals who would become companions with various knowledge to share with the player.” 

He stared at you in silence, listening intently to your words, and you covered your mouth, realizing how much of his time you were wasting. You hadn’t meant to go on such a tangent, but at least he seemed to be focused on something other than the painful memories.

“Oh, sorry. I’m rambling,” you said, and he smiled at you with soft eyes.

“It’s fine. Keep going,” he replied.

“Are you sure it’s not boring? I can-I can talk about something else,” you said, fiddling with your hands, and he shook his head.

“I’m intrigued now. You can’t stop on me now,” he told you, and you nodded, lips curling into a smile at the chance to tell someone besides Jayden about your baby.

“This one game idea is the reason I decided to major in Computer Science.” You kicked at the ground, a loose pebble scurrying far off into the distance when you hit it. “Looking back, I probably should have chosen something more focused on game design, but just in case my idea didn’t work out, I could find other jobs thanks to a CS degree.” You twirled around to face Eren. “I haven’t been able to work on it for a while, but once I get motivation, I’m going to work on it non-stop. Then, once I finish it and get critiques, I can publish it as an indie game and keep trying to add more onto it or start a new game.” You giggled as you thought about how your game would turn out, the reaction people would have once it was perfect, and the wide smile on your face made Eren sigh. You shot your eyes up to him, thinking you bored him to death. 

“Scheiße (shit).” He covered his eyes with a hand and let out a breathy chuckle.

“What’s wrong?” you said, eyebrows furrowed as you stepped closer to him, and he pulled his hand off of his face to tug his bottom lip between his teeth.

“You’re so fucking cute,” he said, and your face turned red in an instant. 

You spluttered, trying to think of a comeback. “I’m-I’m not cute,” you said, and he grabbed your hand to turn you towards him and peered down at you as you looked up at him.

“No, you really are. I can tell you’re really passionate about this game. It’s honestly fucking adorable,” he said, face inching closer to yours.

“Stop lying,” you told him, shaking your head and stepping backwards.

He released your hand and stuck his hands into his jean pockets. “I thought I told you that I don’t lie, angel. I mean it,” he said, bending down to come face to face with you. He gave you a lopsided smile and winked at you. 

You rolled your eyes at him to deflect from his words, a hint of a smile dancing on your face. The sun sunk in the sky, purples and pinks smeared across the blue expanse, and you knew you had to head home soon. You motioned for him to come closer to you, and when he leaned down, you stood on your tippy toes and pressed your lips to his cheek. “Thank you,” you whispered in his ear, and his eyes widened, the tips of his ears turning bright red as your breath tickled his ear. A giggle escaped your mouth as you stepped away, gave him a soft wave, and turned to leave.

“Ah-ah-ah. Not so fast,” he said, grabbing your arm and turning you around. Your eyes looked up, and his tongue poked out to swipe across his bottom lip. “Aren’t you missing somewhere, baby?” he said, tapping his lips with a pointer finger, and you shook your head with a chuckle.

“Come here,” you said, and he brought his face in front of yours, his lips centimeters from yours, and you brought two fingers up to your lips, kissed them, and pressed them against his. An exasperated sigh left him when you stepped back, and he stood straight to pout and hang his head, feet kicking at stray pebbles on the ground. He reminded you of a little kid robbed of their chance to get candy, and you chuckled.

“Wow, is my pain funny to you?” he asked, lips pushed forward, and you nodded.

“Very.” 

He stepped forward to wrap his arms around you and pull you against his chest, your heart stopping as his body heat transferred to yours and relaxed your body, but it soon ended when he picked you up and bounced you up in the air. Startled yelps escaped you, soon turning into giggles when he spun around, and you pulled at his arms.

“Put me down, Eren!” you yelled through your giggles, and he stopped moving, though he didn’t drop you.

“Say ‘please,’” he said, and you huffed.

“Please put me down before I kick you in the balls, mister,” you said, and he let go of you in an instant, backing off with his hands up in surrender. 

“I don’t think either of us will be happy if you do that,” he said, and you bit back the retort threatening to slip from your tongue. 

“God, you’re annoying,” you said in a lighthearted manner, and he gave you a lopsided grin.

“One of my many charms. Maybe that’s why you’re in love with me,” he joked, and you let out a breath through your nose.

“Oh, shut it,” you said, and the moment his lips curved up into a smirk, you knew you shouldn’t have said it.

“Why don’t you make me?” he said.

“Okay,” you replied, a rush of confidence coursing through you as you hopped up onto the retaining wall to tower over him. “Close your eyes,” you said, raising a hand, and he squinted his eyes shut, awaiting the feeling of your hand against his face. Instead, you rested it behind his head to push his face closer to yours, and you pressed your lips against his, moving them against his stiff lips as shock entered his system. The faded taste of strawberries melted against your lips as you tilted your head to the side to apply more pressure, and he relaxed underneath your lips, ready to kiss back. Before he could respond to the kiss fully, though, you pulled away and came face to face with his hooded eyes that asked you for more. He tried to rest a hand on your waist to pull you closer, but you grabbed his hand to interlace your fingers before he could touch you.

“You taste like Oreos,” he said, and you blushed. He tugged you closer to his body, your feet on the edge of the wall. “Does that mean you want me to leave you alone from now on or...?” he asked as you swung your hands between your bodies. 

“I’ll leave it up to your interpretation,” you said, hopping down from the retaining wall to ground level. A soft breeze blew and ruffled your hair as Eren stared at you, contemplating what words to say as his mind became a muddled mess thanks to you. You gave his hand a soft squeeze as your fingers slipped out from his grasp, happy he seemed in a better mood now. 

“You-” he started, but your phone buzzed in your pocket, and you grabbed it to see a message from Jayden asking you to head back now to watch a horror movie with them. You knew you’d walk into a room full of random booby traps to keep “evil monsters” away if you didn’t head back now and watch it with them, so you smiled at Eren and pocketed your phone.

“I have to go now. See you later, gnat!” you said, waving at his frozen figure as you walked off towards your dorm. His eyes trailed after your retreating figure, and you smiled to yourself.

Just a little more.

_Just a little more._

\---

“Jayden, I’m back,” you called as you entered your dorm, shutting the door with a click behind you as you slipped off your shoes. They didn’t respond, but the sound of clothes rustling alerted you of their presence. “What are you being so quiet for? Didn’t you want to watch a horror movie?” you asked, and you stepped towards your beds to see clothes thrown out on top of them. 

Your clothes.

From various oversized sweaters to pants with a very select few shorts sprinkled into the mix and even the dress Eren returned to you, all the clothes you had stored in your armoire glared at you. Your heart dropped down to the pit of your stomach as dread flooded your body, and when you saw Jayden standing next to your armoire, a familiar purple sweatshirt clutched in their hands as their eyes burned into the fabric, you knew you were fucked.

“Why the _fuck_ do you still have this?” The trembling words struggled to escape their throat, and you gulped.

“Why did you go through my clothes?” you responded as your hands trembled and breathing turned shallow, and Jayden tightened their grip on the sweatshirt.

The silence between you wrapped invisible fingers around your throat and readied to strangle you as Jayden turned to look at you with tear-filled eyes and a trembling bottom lip. They slammed the empty armoire door closed, the wooden body shaking from the impact, and you flinched as your blood ran cold. 

“Jayden, please, don’t,” you said as familiar memories threatened to pop up in your mind of nights filled with screaming and breaking objects.

At the sight of your trembling body, Jayden took a deep breath as they gripped their hair and tugged at their curls. “I knew it. You lied to me when you said you were over everything that happened.” They threw the hoodie on the floor, and your eyes remained on the crumpled fabric to keep from looking into their dark eyes that swarmed with disappointment. “Why did you lie to me?”

“It’s not important,” you replied.

“Like hell it is! This is all about you getting better and being able to live life normally, not going into panic attacks every five seconds because you keep remembering what he did to you! Just answer me! Why did you lie to me? I’m your best friend, and yet you can’t share this with me?”

“Okay, then fine!” You threw your hands into the air. “It’s because you were barely there for me! Are you happy? I’ve been dealing with it myself, and so far, nothing bad has happened, so just calm down and leave me alone,” you said, bending down to pick up the sweatshirt and chuck it onto Jayden’s bed. They huffed and took a step forward before retreating a few backwards.

“So you’re telling me that you’ve decided to fuck around with  _ Eren _ to cope? What the hell are you going to do if you have an attack around him? Or anyone else for that matter? Did you even think that far ahead?” They took a deep breath as their shaky words stabbed into you like knives that pricked at all your sore spots. “Do you want to fuck up your relationships that bad?”

A muscle in your jaw twitched, and you snapped your eyes up to them as your nostrils flared. “It’s none of your business what the hell I do!” you yelled. “Just leave me alone to my own devices like you already have, and I’ll be fine! I haven’t had any flashbacks or attacks lately, so I _am_ getting better,” you lied, hiding your few close encounters earlier today. 

“I don’t want to yell at you and bring shit back up, but you can’t keep going on like this! Just because it hasn’t happened yet doesn’t mean it won’t happen at all! I’m asking if you’re prepared for when it does occur.” They stepped closer to you and lifted their hands up, and you stepped back with wide eyes, heart pounding in your chest. “Please, Y/N. I’m not going to hit you,” they said, and you tensed up as they placed their cold hands on your cheeks to look straight into your eyes. “I don’t want the shit he put you through to keep affecting you now. Please go back and get help. I miss watching movies with you and just playing with your hair, but now, you flinch if I so much as raise a hand near your face. I know he put you through shit you didn’t deserve, but that doesn’t mean you can’t overcome it and become stronger.”

Tears sprung up in the corner of your eyes as your fingers curled around their wrists and held on. Your throat tightened up, and you swallowed the thickness lingering in the back of your mouth. “Are you going to leave me alone again this time?” you asked, not meaning for the words to come out as harsh as they did.

Regret flashed in Jayden’s eyes, and they swiped their thumb underneath your eyes to remove the tears. “I won’t. I was going through my own issues at that time, but I still pushed your problems away and forced you to deal with them alone. All I did was make you go to therapy. This time, I will be here when you need me, okay? You deserve to live the life you want without being plagued by trauma and other worries. I’ll walk beside you whenever you want me to and let you lean on me, so please… please think about yourself and do what you need to get better.”

The tears slipped from your eyes and trailed down your cheeks. Mucus coated your throat and made your words thick. “I don’t know what to do anymore, Jayden. I hate thinking about him, but whenever I don’t, I feel empty. I can’t help recalling the good memories and longing for them, but I know they all just end with things breaking and him screaming. I-I want to get over it,” you said, a sob breaking free from your thick throat.

Jayden slid to the ground with you as your legs splayed out beside you. “I know you do, baby. It will take more time than it already has been. If I had just been there for you more, then maybe you’d be slightly better.”

You shook your head as you pulled their hands off of your face and wiped your tears on your sleeve. “It’s not your fault. You had shit going on, and I should have worked hard to get better by myself so you wouldn’t stress.”

They laced their fingers with yours and squeezed your hand. “You had just come out of the relationship. You were paranoid and frightened by the smallest noises, and I just left you to fend for yourself.”

“But your family-”

“I couldn’t have given two shit about them, and yet I chose them over you,” Jayden said, and you pursed your lips as they trembled.

“It’s in the past now. Let’s try to be there for each other now. Whenever you need me, I’ll be there too,” you said. Jayden hummed as they slid their body next to yours and rested their head on your shoulder, hand still holding yours.

“That’s a good idea,” they said, rubbing circles on the back of your hand with their thumb. “Anything else you want to let out now?”

You exhaled a shaky breath and pulled your knees to your chest as images of Eren smiling and laughing popped into your mind. “I want to be able to talk with Eren without thinking he just wants me for my body and will drop me once he gets tired. I’m afraid of letting him fully in because what if I disappoint him and can’t be the way he wants me to be and then he hates me? I don’t think I can stand being hated by Eren.”

“He won’t hate you. You just need to be upfront with him. Don’t drag him around just because you’re afraid he’ll treat you like Jean. You’ll only hurt yourself and him.”

“I know that, and yet a small part of my mind keeps telling me that I’m delusional when I think that maybe—just _maybe_ —Eren likes me. What if his flirting is just to play around with me and make me believe he likes me? What if it turns out to be some prank where I’m the joke, and then everyone laughs at me for thinking I can like someone normally?”

Jayden lifted their head from your shoulder and tilted your face towards theirs until you looked directly into their doe eyes. “Eren is not like that. He may joke around with other people about various things, but he’s a good guy who tries to care for others and make sure they feel appreciated. He’d never try to purposely hurt someone.”

“I sure hope you’re right.”

“Hey, I might tell jokes about him thinking with his dick most of the time, but from what I’ve seen lately, he hasn’t been doing that. If he were really after your body, he’d most likely have tried to make a pass on you by now. He’s being patient with you and waiting for _you_ to give him the OK before he does anything. Before, I might have been reluctant for anything to happen between you and him, but he doesn’t want to hurt you. I can trust him to take care of you when I can’t, so please try to do the same. It doesn’t have to be instant—take your time—but you should work hard to overcome this for your sake. I want my smiley best friend who just wanted to make games for little kids in schools to resurface.”

You tilted your head and rested it against the top of Jayden’s as you closed your eyes and breathed in their lavender scent. “I’ll try to bring her back. I miss her too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i don't speak german, so i apologize for any mistranslations. also, sorry for this whiplash of a chapter... did i come up with the whole game idea off the top of my head? yes, yes i did. see you next chapter, whenever i can get it out🏃

**Author's Note:**

> should i be starting a new story when i already have another one going on that i haven't updated in a month???? who cares; it's eren yeager.
> 
> sorry for how long this first chapter is BJDLHSJABSDNDJFS


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